To the Ends of the Earth
by Heaven Born Captain
Summary: A late night phone call brings together a refreshingly unconventional team who will go to extraordinary lengths to save a wayward fellow from the clutches of certain death. Post-Aliyah. For all the TIVA fans out there.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Okay, I told myself I wasn't gonna write it, but I did. This is for all the Tiva fans out there (Only God knows how many of you there actually are) and I realise that this will more than likely not occur. But this is my contribution to the post-Aliyah fad, so naturally there are spoilers on everything up to and including that episode. I should warn you, one of the characters has a major AU storyline. I'll explain more in the next chapter. For now, enjoy and please review.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, plots or locations from NCIS and I have the utmost respect for the writers and producers of the series. I am not making a profit from this story and am writing it for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of others.

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**Chapter One**

It was night. It was dark. A slow flicker from the plasma as the movie he'd seen a hundred times flicked from shot to shot was the only energy to light the place. Rain pelted against his window like gunfire. Wind bellowed a mournful song in the night. His lips were barely touching the glass when the strong taste of bourbon rushed through his mouth. And it lingered. Lingered in his soul like everything else. His world had stopped, but everything around him just kept going.

For two weeks now, this had been Tony's routine each and every night after work. His bag was left slumped behind his door, his jacket was thrown on to the floor, and almost in immediate succession, a glass full of his boss' preferred libation was present in front of him. In his catatonic state had done it automatically, but when he took a second look, he could almost trick himself into believing that someone else had left it there for him.

Entranced by his current predicament, he completely ignored the movie that was playing in the background. He'd seen it exactly eight times with his partner; that much he knew. He couldn't understand why he couldn't bear to watch it alone. He'd done so before she came into his life—why should it be so different after she'd gone? The part of him that couldn't watch the film was the same part resigned to the fact that he would never see her again. The pessimism crept up on him in the dark of night when he was alone and intoxicated. At work at least, he could find some joy. Abby's joy. McGee's joy. Even Ducky's joy. They were anticipating her return. But none of them were in Israel. They didn't watch her walk away. They didn't see the emotions raging through her body during her aliyah back to her homeland.

As another wave of sorrow washed over him (as well as another sip of the burning alcohol) Tony shifted back further into his armchair and closed his eyes. He remembered Israel like it was yesterday, not two weeks ago. He remembered everything like it just happened... and it haunted his every waking and dormant moment. From the fight with Rivkin to the conversation with Gibbs at the hospital to the tense, silent and extremely uncomfortable C-130 trip to Tel Aviv; his battle with Eli, his fight with Ziva—and then, finally, her departure from his life. It was those memories that his cynical side fed on. _She was not coming home._

The movie finished and Tony glanced over at the bright red numbers on his alarm clock. It was ten-thirty. He knew it wouldn't be another three hours, at least, before he even considered sleep. And even when he lay down on the bed, sleep would not come. Well... not without help from a little scientific invention known as the magic bullet of insomnia. He shifted slightly, moving most of his weight off of his injured arm. It was on the mend, but not even half way there yet. He couldn't wait to be rid of the cast and get back out into the field. The field that he knew would never be the same again.

Two days after they arrived back in Washington, Vance temporarily assigned Gibbs a Probie. With Tony injured and Ziva gone, the bullpen had never been so small. And they had active cases to run. Major active cases. If Tony had to admit it, the new girl wasn't too bad an agent. She was smart, obedient and a speedy learner. He could see that Gibbs wasn't complaining—Junior Special Agent Tia Montez had great instincts and lightning fast reflexes at anticipating everybody's next move, even his. In looks alone, Montez and Ziva could have been related. But in rationale, the two couldn't be more different. Montez worked silently and obediently; she didn't argue when Gibbs took away her weapons for three days; she knew enough about computers to please McGee, even joining him in an MMORPG one afternoon (but drew the line at Elflord) and, with a degree in forensic science from Penn State, she knew enough about crime scene investigation to please Abby.

Gorgeous as she was, Tony was too far gone with his wayward emotions to even consider making a move. And he guessed that Montez saw and believed the same thing about him, so she left him alone. They hadn't really had much contact since her arrival. She never asked about the desk she occupied and she never brought up Tony's partner, rather ex-partner, with him. Due to his injury, she was always paired with McGee and he was left at NCIS to run point with Abby, or man the investigation from the home front.

He and Abby had become close after Ziva left. Well, closer. He had walked into her lab the following day and demanded to know everything that she'd discovered with McGee while he was in Israel. Seeing the maniacal look on his face, she hesitantly complied, all the while maintaining her position that Ziva was still loyal to their agency and their team, and was forced into all of it by Rivkin and her father. Tony was still not so sure.

With another sip of the glass, Tony went over everything Abby had told him. The emails, the phone call to Amit Hadar, and even what she'd found on both Rivkin's and Abin Tabul's respective laptops. Ah, how he cursed the laptop. Finding Rivkin's personal property at Tabul's residence had been what set this entire string of episodes into motion. He looked across at his clock again. Eleven.

And as he did so, the apartment's dead silence was interrupted by a loud sound. His cell phone rang.

Once.

Twice.

On the third, Tony made the effort to stand up and answer it.

"Special Agent DiNozzo," came the female caller's mysterious voice. "Listen very carefully to what I have to say."

"Of course. I love taking orders from people I've never met on the other end of a phone line who could be thousands of miles away," Tony chided sarcastically.

"That was a good guess, but I did not call you to hear witty statements from your cynical self, Agent DiNozzo," she shot back. "Listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say if you ever want to see your partner alive again."

Apparently, it takes a woman 8.3 seconds to decide whether or not she will sleep with a man upon meeting him. Tony took far less than half that time to decide his next course of action.

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A/N: As I mentioned earlier, please review. What are you thinking???


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Okay, a few vital things I need to mention before this chapter gets underway. Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who reviewed. If it's signed, I'll definitely reply back. Secondly, I know you're all wondering who the mystery woman is. Well you know her, but she's the character in this fic with the AU backstory, i.e. in this story, she has not yet appeared in the series. It was either that or I introduce an OC and... well, this way was preferable. I also need to publicly thank my editor. You do not wanna see what the original script looked like. So without further ado, here's Chapter Two.

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

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**Chapter Two**

Emailing in sick to work, Tony collected the last of his clothes and necessities and shoved them into his ready bag. Had it been another time, he would have made some joke of catching swine flu in Israel, but the concern over the stranger's call and the worry that coursed through his veins soon after forbade such an idea. All that Gibbs, or Vance, would read was that he had a fever; probably the flu. The regular flu. He would buy his tickets at the airport and nobody would know that he was even gone until he was somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean. That was his grand scheme- at least until a knock came at his front door.

"Tony, open up!"

The man banged on the door thrice more, each time a little harder. Regrettably, Tony answered the door.

"You were supposed to be at work an hour ago," Palmer scolded him.

"I'm sick, Palmer," Tony replied as his guest made his way through the hall and into his living room. He noticed the go bag on his coffee table, packed and ready to go. Tony's gun, badge and passport were carefully placed next to it.

"Going somewhere?" Palmer asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question.

"It's not important," Tony said forcefully. He stepped in front of the young medical examiner's assistant and walked him backwards to the door.

"What's going on?"

"You should go back to work."

"What's going on?" Palmer repeated.

Tony sighed. "Ziva's in trouble. I got a phone call last night and I'm going to help find her. Please hold off on telling Gibbs that until this afternoon."

"I won't be telling Gibbs anything. I'm coming with you."

Tony almost burst out laughing. "No, Jimmy, you're not."

"Hey, you could always use an extra pair of hands. I'm fluent in German and French, if it helps. And I'm a doctor, or at least in training. You're already injured, Tony, and what if something else happens?"

"Why do you want to come?"

"I want to help save Ziva too."

"I didn't say that she needed saving."

Palmer rolled his eyes. "'In trouble?' She missing?"

Tony sighed again. Palmer was getting everything out of him. "She hasn't checked in since Tuesday last week."

"Nine days ago," Palmer commented in a sympathetic tone.

"You don't just wanna save Ziva. What else?"

Palmer walked back into Tony's living room and sat down on his favourite armchair. "I want to be known as more than just the geeky medical examiner's assistant, or the guy who got so freaked out when a gun was pointed at him that he couldn't remember anything after. Oh, and don't forget the shoe fetish."

Tony laughed this time. Trust Palmer to snap him out of his head space. "Are you sure you want to come? Things will probably get very hairy very quickly."

"And if they do, I promise that I'll stay out the way or get on the next flight back to Washington."

Somehow, Tony very much doubted this.

"And I promise to follow your lead," he added.

"Let's stop by your apartment then. Grab some clothes. The plane leaves from Dulles in ninety minutes." And Tony could have sworn that he saw a wide smile on Palmer's face as the younger man passed him in the hallway. He grabbed his bag, badge, gun and passport, took one last look at his apartment, and walked out the door.

---

The plane ride was virtually silent between them. Palmer was reading a sci-fi novel. Tony was watching the in-flight entertainment on the screen in front of him. The flight wasn't too long—nine hours was relatively short on a United Airlines flight, as opposed to thirteen hours on a C-130 to Tel Aviv. It was midnight, local time, when they landed at their destination. Tony switched his phone back on as he waited at the customs and Palmer mimicked his action. They each had multiple missed calls from McGee, Gibbs, Abby, Ducky and Vance. The whole family. Expecting his phone to ring again soon, he switched it off. Palmer, once again, followed suit. They made it through customs relatively quickly and saw that the woman Tony had spoken to on the phone the previous evening was waiting for them at the arrival gate.

"Special Agent DiNozzo," she called out to them. Tony and Palmer quickly walked over to her. "I'm NCIS Special Agent Jenny Shepard. I'm the one that spoke to you on the phone."

"You based in Naples?" Tony asked smarmily. For just a moment, he let his eyes wander down her revealing neckline. He didn't want to admit it, not with the present situation, but the redhead before him was rather beautiful. Some part of his mind made the comment that she was exactly the type of woman his boss would go for. That brought his eyes back up to hers quickly.

"A rather intelligent deduction," she retorted. Moving her gaze from the handsome agent, her eyes lingered over his travelling companion. "And you are?"

"Jimmy Palmer, ma'am," he answered quickly and a little nervously. Jenny noted that he almost stuttered with his name.

"NCIS agent?"

"Medical examiner's assistant," Tony answered for him.

"You work for Ducky?" Jenny asked with a new show of admiration. She didn't even wait for the positive answer before continuing. "This will be very interesting. I'm working with Gibbs' protégé and Ducky's protégé. I just hope that you two are as good as they were."

"You worked with them before?" Palmer asked excitedly, but Tony's own question cut him off.

"Just what do you expect me to tell Gibbs now?"

"Don't tell him anything right now," Jenny answered relaxedly. She clearly wasn't as afraid of the team leader as his minion was. "We used have a saying—what Gibbs doesn't know-"

Tony finished her sentence. "Can't hurt him."

"No. Can't hurt us," Jenny completed with a smile. "When the time comes, I will deal with Special Agent Gibbs. Now follow me." And they did follow her. To the exit. To a black town car. Tony assumed that they were driving to Naples, when in fact, they weren't leaving the airport.

"_Signora,"_ a man called out to Jenny as she stepped out of the vehicle and on to the tarmac first. Tony and Palmer followed and realised that they had just driven to another part of the airport. The driver had dropped them off next to Gulfstream IV jet. With their ready bags slung over their shoulders, Jenny, Tony and Palmer walked towards the steps leading up to the jet's entrance.

"_Signora,"_ the man repeated. He was waiting on the bottom step and immediately addressed Jenny as they approached. _"L'aereo partira in dieci minuti."_

"What did he say?" Palmer hissed at Tony.

"The plane leaves in ten," Tony replied quickly.

"Where are we going?"

"How the hell should I know?" Tony shot back and then walked up the steps. Palmer took a deep breath before following suit.

The interior of the jet was very comfortable and Tony chose to sit himself on the lounge. Palmer took a seat at the booth across from where Jenny was sitting.

"Where are we going, Agent Shepard? If you don't mind me asking," Palmer questioned, with a little more confidence in the redhead's presence than he had originally had.

"Why would I mind you asking? Algeria."

"Algeria?!" Tony ejected, sitting upright. "Is that where Ziva is supposed to be?"

"No," Jenny returned. "Make yourself comfortable. If you tell me your story of everything that happened with Michael Rivkin in Washginton and then in Tel Aviv, I will tell you mine."

And so, Tony began his tale as the plane took off.

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**A/N:** Okay, yeah, Jenny is the AU character. She's not and never has been Director in this fic, hence the AU nature. But if people really want me to get rid of Vance at the end.... And yes, I ummed and ahhed about who was going with Tony and decided on Palmer. So tell me what you think. Please review.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: Thanks everyone for the reviews. The Arabic in this chapter is written in English transliteration, so it may be a little off. It loses something in changing the form from Arabic script to Roman letters, but I didn't want to confuse anyone.

Disclaimer: See Chapter One

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**Chapter Three**

There was silence as Tony finished his story. He didn't want to say anymore and Palmer didn't dare to add anything. Jenny was the first to speak.

"What else do you know about Abin Tabal?"

"Well, he's dead. I might've mentioned that Officer Rivkin tried to convince us that he committed suicide," Tony retorted.

"Yes. You did mention that. What do you know about his _life_?" Jenny could sense his reserved feelings of animosity towards the Mossad Officer that he'd had to kill.

"Serial numbers, cell phones numbers, a lot of things that Abby and McGee got off his laptop with links to North Africa," Tony replied.

"This was the laptop that Rivkin had?" Jenny asked.

"Yes."

"Then you know about as much, if not less, than I do."

Stray glances of surprise and admiration came her way, but she easily brushed them off.

"I'll admit, that intel you got was exactly what we needed around here, but we have long since known about him and tracked his involvement with terrorist groups here in Algeria. FBI had him on a watch list, right?" Jenny continued.

Tony nodded and put in, "He was a handler for a training camp."

"And Mossad wants the guy that's running the whole show," Palmer added.

The same looks that Jenny had received not a minute before were now being rerouted in Palmer's direction.

He shrugged it off. "I overheard a conversation. Wrong place, right time."

"Do you know where this camp is?" Tony asked.

"North Africa," Jenny offered up as an answer. "Beyond that, we aren't sure, but using the intel that Tabal's computer provided, we should be able to track it down."

"Even if it's moved?" asked Tony.

"Which it probably has, considering it's been compromised," Palmer ejected. This was followed by another surprised look in his direction from Tony. "I don't know why this surprises you," Palmer said, shrugging again.

"Even if it's moved, which it probably has," Jenny reiterated.

"What has this got to do with Ziva? You still haven't told me anything," Tony's said, irate.

"It has everything to do with Ziva. Mossad has been stonewalling me, but my contacts have hinted that she was involved in an operation using Rivkin's intel to track down and eliminate the man running the camp. My guess is that they were originally Rivkin's orders. He tracked down the sleeper cell from Yemen, the cell gives up the handler, and the handler gives up the location of the camp."

"But the camp's probably not there anymore," Palmer stated again. "So why all the trouble?"

"Because the links to the camp are still there, and they'll pick up the scent again quickly."

"So Ziva was sent to Algeria to find the new location of the camp?" Tony questioned.

"No, she was last seen on a boat off the Horn of Africa in Somalia," Jenny replied. "I believe that the fishing trawler, maybe a pirate vessel, maybe not, was her way into the country."

"So the camp was in Somalia, Agent Shepard?" Palmer asked.

"Perhaps, perhaps not, but that was where Ziva's journey began. Ours will begin in Algiers. But remember, I don't think she was after the camp. And it's Jenny. We will be working very closely over the next few days."

"Then it's Tony. And Jimmy. And surely if she found the camp and eliminated the man running it, it would be destroyed too and its students imprisoned," Tony told her. "Am I right?"

"Again, perhaps, perhaps not. Don't be so eager to assume collateral damage here."

"So why are we going to Algiers, then?" Palmer asked.

"Meeting up with my contacts," Jenny answered him. She looked out the window and then back at Palmer and Tony. "And we are about to land. It would not be intelligent for us to run around North Africa blind."

Tony watched from his window as the plane landed in Algiers. The waterfront city was beautiful by night—a lighted mix of contemporary and traditional landmarks gripping the coastline. As soon as the pilot switched off the seatbelt sign, Jenny was out of her seat with her black bag slung sleekly over her back. She was the first to disembark and the first to touch Algerian soil. Tony followed Palmer out a few moments later and noticed that they would, once again, be greeted by one of her many contacts.

The man that stood by the black sedan about thirty feet from the jet was young, maybe in his late twenties, Tony decided, and wearing a black suit minus the tie. His dark brown hair matched the short facial hair and he was smiling widely at the arrival of his friend. Tony could only assume that was what Jenny was by their friendly greeting.

"_as-salām alaīkom_," he welcomed, touching his chest lightly as Jenny approached.

She smiled and repeated the motion. "_wa alaīkom as-salām_." She turned around to Tony and Palmer and waved for them to come over. "Tony, Jimmy, meet Tariq Bustani. My contact here."

"Nice to meet you," Tony said, shaking the man's hand.

"_taŝarrafnā,_" Palmer said, also shaking Tariq's hand.

For the third time in as many hours, Tony glanced, surprised, at his travelling companion. "You speak Arabic? You didn't mention that you spoke Arabic."

"I don't speak Arabic," Palmer told him with a shrug. "I took a class in college. I know a few words."

"What other languages are spoken here?" Tony asked Tariq.

"Tribal Berber languages as well as French," he replied. "French is taught in schools here as well as Arabic, but you will find that some people speak English."

"Good to know."

"I will take you to your hotel now," Tariq told them, and opened the front and rear passenger doors of the car before walking around to the driver's side. Jenny sat in the front beside Tariq, leaving Tony and Palmer to fill out the back seat. Tony wound down his window, embracing the Mediterranean spring wind and the shining lights of the beautiful Arabian city.

Jenny, meanwhile, removed a yellow envelope from the glove box and ripped it open voraciously, almost like a child with a new toy. Dropping the contents into her lap, she flicked through the three passports, twenty million Algerian dinars in a bank account in Constantine, in addition to several thousand dinar banknotes in cash, and a print-out of their covers.

"It was the best that I could do in as many hours," Tariq told her.

"_ŝukrā_," she thanked him.

He nodded in reply.

"How did you get all of this money?"

"Casey."

"He here in Algeria?"

"In Morocco. And he wants you to call him tomorrow."

"I'll do that. I may need his help anyway."

"Who's Casey?" Tony asked from the backseat.

"CIA Agent Jack Casey," Jenny answered. "Okay, passports." She passed Tony and Palmer theirs. "Tony, you will be Italian real estate agent Antonio DiNardo."

"Did you come up with that yourself?" Tony asked.

"What? I only had a few hours." Then she turned to Palmer. "You will be Scottish investor, James O'Llama."

"Llama?" he questioned, but the glare on Jenny's face quietened him.

"And you?" Tony asked.

"Your wife, Genoveffa DiNardo."

Palmer burst out laughing, but Tony did not. "We're married? You couldn't come up with anything else?"

"Like I said, DiNozzo, I only had few hours," Jenny told him seriously. "Jimmy, can you make your best attempt at some sort of Scottish accent? I daresay you've spent enough time with Ducky."

"I'm sure I can," he replied in his best attempt.

Tony and Jenny had to agree, it was actually rather good. Perhaps the young lad had spent too much time with Ducky.

They arrived at the beautiful Saharan Nights hotel on the waterfront outskirts of the city within about fifteen minutes. For their covers' sake, they were not sharing one room. Tony and Jenny had a suite to themselves and Palmer was in the adjacent suite. A bellman led them to their rooms and Jenny tipped him before he left. She then turned to Palmer. "Be in our suite at 0700 tomorrow morning and ready to go. I do not think we will still be in Algeria this time tomorrow."

Palmer nodded and bid them goodnight. Tony unlocked their room and walked inside first, Jenny trailing closely behind. The suite was a comfortable size with a king bed in the middle. Tony looked at Jenny unsurely.

"You kick or snore and I'm throwing you out," she warned before walking into the bathroom with her bag. "And then you can go and sleep with Palmer in his bed."

Tony sighed and changed into the sweat pants and NCIS tee that he'd packed at the very bottom of his bag. Sighing for the third (at least) time that night as he slipped in between the sheets on the right side of the bed, he was asleep before Jenny even came back. There was something about the optimistic thought that he could still see Ziva again that mellowed his wayward mind.

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**Author's Note:** Thanks for reading and please review. I really enjoy reading your reviews and I will reply to every signed one.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

**Chapter Four**

Tony's eyes fluttered open slowly as he heard movement in the room. He hadn't even rolled over when he felt a cool towel collide with the back of his head. He bolted upright immediately.

"Get up," Jenny ordered as she walked past him, fully dressed.

"What the hell? What's the time?"

"0645h. Have a shower, 'cause it may be your last for days," she told him before slipping out of the hotel room and walking next door.

Tony cursed her tiredly under his breath and stepped into the already steaming bathroom. The mirrors had fogged over, he guessed from Jenny's shower, and the floor was already soaked with puddles of water. Placing a plastic bag over the cast on his left forearm and holding it out of the screen while he showered, he found it incredibly difficult to actually clean himself, and even more difficult because he had to do it quickly.

He was sure that he was in the shower for less than 5 minutes when Jenny banged on the bathroom door and told him to get out. He sighed and complied. She was running the show after all, and he was dying to find out more about Ziva. Changing into a pair of grey pants and a white shirt, he stepped out of the bathroom still drying his hair with a fluffy white hotel towel.

"Are you ready to go, Tony?" Jenny asked. Palmer was standing next to her, wearing a tie-less black suit and blue shirt.

"What's the rush?"

"We're meeting a colleague of mine for breakfast," she answered. Turning her back on him, she picked up her go-bag, which was, naturally, ready to go, and walked out of the hotel room. Palmer followed her and Tony was left there, sighing. He grabbed his own bag off the bed, shoved his sweatpants and t-shirt into its already overflowing compartment and tried to close the zipper as he walked out the door. He was still trying when he joined Jenny and Palmer in the elevator.

The Naples NCIS agent scowled at him and shook her head, then grabbed the bag from him angrily and closed it herself.

"Thank you," Tony said unsurely when she threw it back at him.

Tariq was waiting for them in the hotel lobby as they checked out, and then walked with them to the same black sedan he'd picked them up from the airport in the previous night.

"_sabāhu al-khaīr,"_ Tariq greeted them as they approached.

"_sabāhu an-noor,"_ Jenny and Palmer replied automatically.

"Good morning," Tony answered, all the while looking uncomfortable with the Arabic speakers.

"We must go now," Tariq told them, ushering them into his car. They obeyed quickly and he drove them to a small cafe on a busy street corner ten minutes away.

"I will wait around the corner," he told Jenny before they disembarked. Palmer and Tony, unsure of where to go, followed Jenny into the cafe where she sat down across from a lightly tanned American man reading a newspaper in French.

"_Bounjour, mes amis_," the man greeted. Jenny shook his hand and sat down.

"Jack, you've met my husband, Antonio, and this is his friend James," Jenny introduced as her companions sat on either side of her.

"Tony, good to see you again," Jack said, shaking his hand.

"Good to see you, too, Jack," Tony replied unsurely. Jenny shot him a look and he added a smile.

"And James." Jack reached across to shake his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"And you," Palmer replied with his best Scottish accent.

"We can talk here?" Jenny whispered across the table.

"It's loud and it's about to get louder. Wait for it..." Jack replied. "Wait for it..." And not a moment later, a live band which included the maverick music of an accordion.

"Okay," Jenny said, agreeing that there was little chance of being overheard. "So what can you tell me?"

"Nothing much," Jack replied. "I have no idea where your friend is being held. Have you worked with this Officer David before?"

Tony looked at Jenny expectantly. It was a question that he'd been asking himself since he got the phone call.

She nodded. "Some years ago in Egypt, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. She saved my life in Cairo almost seven years ago."

"And you want to return the favour?"

"Do you know anything of value, Jack?" Jenny blurted out, angrier than she had originally intended to be.

"I spoke to my Mossad contacts," he replied, but then immediately stopped talking as a young waitress approached and took their orders for breakfast in Arabic. Jenny asked Tony what he wanted in Italian and Palmer in English and then relayed it back to her. As soon as she was out of earshot, Jack continued. "I didn't get any great details of David's mission in Africa, but I got the idea that her cover was flimsy." He turned to Tony. "When did you last see her? Exactly."

"Sixteen days ago," he answered. "In Tel Aviv."

"That's less than a few days to get her into this mission," Jack thought aloud. "From what I've gathered about when she went missing, she was on a Somali fishing trawler not far off the coast of Somalia. She was fine for three days and I'm guessing that she never even suspected that she'd be caught. The trawler was her way into the country."

"Ziva would have seen something coming," Jenny told him. "She's Ziva."

"Even after four years as a Navy cop investigating crime scenes in the US?" Jack asked and then added to Tony, "No offence."

"She's a good officer," Jenny reiterated.

"Alright, but I'm just saying, you know, she got caught," Jack said smarmily.

Tony almost lost it. "Do you have anything good for us?"

Jack only just caught sight of a cast underneath Tony's grey jacket. "What happened to your arm?"

"Not important," Tony replied. He edged back into his seat.

"I checked up on you," Jack directed at Tony. "You were her partner for four years."

"And?"

"Just her partner?"

"Why does everyone ask me that?" Tony ejected angrily.

"Maybe because your feelings are just so obvious," Jack told him with a smile. They stopped speaking again when the food arrived, thanked the waitress and then started eating. Tony was thoroughly enjoying his pancakes with banana and chocolate sauce and Palmer was digging into his omelette, but Jack and Jenny continued their conversation, nibbling at their breakfast every so often.

"You're going to a lot of trouble to find someone who's probably dead by now," Jack pointed out, expressing his opinion. "At least, you'd hope that she's dead. I don't want to know what she's been through. There's only so much the human body can take."

"She didn't break," Jenny replied. "She's had good training and she's strong."

"She's been with them for ten days, Jenny."

This made Tony's stomach drop. He'd been so worried about the state of her health since he heard about her capture and thoughts about the methods of interrogation that she would have been subjected to only sickened him further. He dropped his fork and knife with a clang. Jack looked up at him, but didn't make a comment, and changed the subject instead. "I know that you're not going home until you find her."

"Thanks for the money and papers," Jenny said. "What do you want in return?"

"Obviously the terrorist training camp," Jack told her. "If they managed to get anything out of Ziva, anything about NCIS, our domestic agencies' abilities to prevent a terrorist attack or respond to one will be seriously compromised."

"You think they're planning an attack in the US?"

"We know that they were," Tony put in.

"And there are probably more sleepers living in the United States," Jack added. "What did your agency get off Abin Tabal's computer? You find anything out about his contacts?"

"Several of them are known Al-Qaeda members operating here in Algeria, in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East."

"_Groupe Salafiste pour la Prèdication et le Combat?"_ Jack asked.

"A few," Jenny answered.

"Wait, what?" Palmer questioned, voicing the same confusion as Tony had.

"The GSPC is an extremist organisation based out of Algiers with strong ties to Al-Qaeda," Jack explained in a low voice. "They set up all over North Africa. Mali, Niger, Libya, just to name a few countries."

"And they have links to the Islamic Courts Union as well," Jenny added.

"Which brings us to Somalia," Jack began. "With the US Navy and pretty much all NATO ships in the area on high alert for Somali pirate activity, I don't that they'd keep her on the ship."

"Agreed," Jenny put forth.

"If she's still alive, she'll be in Somalia," Jack told them. "Or she would have gone there first."

"You think we should go to Mogadishu?" Palmer asked.

"I certainly think that that will be your next stop," came the answer.

"Aren't you coming with us?" Jenny asked.

"No way. I like my house in Morocco."

"And yet the CIA wants in on taking out this terrorist camp? I don't think so."

"You drive a hard bargain, Jenny. Call me when you have something more and I'll meet you there."

Jenny smiled and stood up. "I'll assume that you'll cover the check."

Jack laughed with a wide smile. "It was good to see you again, Genoveffa, Antonio. Nice to meet you, James. We will speak more of this business at a later date."

And they left.

"What do we do now?" Tony asked Jenny as they walked slowly to the alley where Tariq was parked. Jenny was looking around discreetly as they approached the car.

"Turn your phone back on," Jenny told him. "I should speak to Special Agent Gibbs before we go any further."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Okay, so I'll start by thanking everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I'd also like to do a little bit of advertising. Of my other story right now, Cryptocracy. Now it is an NCIS/Bones crossover, but NCIS is the prominent team in and and I know that some of my reviewers have never seen Bones before. I want to urge you all to check it out. I will seriously tell you that it is a much better story than this one. I planned and researched it for months and this story was sort of whimsical. Naturally, Tiva is the big pairing with some Jibbs on the side. But I can promise you that that story will be the most interesting one I've ever written or planned to write and it will have an explosive ending. Please have look at it. The link's on my profile. I put so much more work into that one and it's barely getting as many hits as this one.

Also, I may not be able to update tomorrow. I haven't written the next chapter coz I have an exam in the morning as well as an essay due, and then the completed chapter needs to go to my editor. I'll do my best, but if you don't get one tomorrow, you'll get it the day after. Thanks for reading and please do review.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Tony handed his phone over to the fiery red-haired NCIS agent slowly and cautiously. "It's three in the morning in Washington."

"I am sure that Jethro will not be sleeping," Jenny replied, and she dialled the third entry on his speed dial list.

It rang twice before being answered by angry deep breaths.

"DiNozzo! You better have a good reason for lying to me and dragging Palmer along with you!" came the angry voice on the other end of the line.

"Jethro. I recognise the heavy breathing," Jenny responded, not at all perturbed by the outburst. She understood his temper and just how to shock him out of it.

Gibbs didn't answer for some time and Jenny gathered that she had, indeed, shocked him. It was almost as though he had to rake through his memory to remind himself of the sound of her voice. And he did remember her, ever so gradually and then ever so well. "Jenny."

"Nice to hear your voice again. I'm glad that you took my advice about anger management."

"What are you doing with my agent?!"

"And don't forget Mr Palmer," Jenny added brightly. She was doing her very best to push his buttons.

"Jenny..." he warned, letting his voice trail off.

"What are you doing now? Still making that boat? Diane wasn't it?"

"Where's DiNozzo?!"

"He's right here, and no, you can't talk to him."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Ziva David," she replied simply.

"What about her?"

Jenny could sense some reservation in his voice. Nevertheless, she answered the question with another simple, two-word answer. "She's missing."

"And you enlisted DiNozzo's and Palmer's help to find her," Gibbs retorted. "In Italy?"

"Not quite, Jethro. And at first, I only enlisted Tony's help. Jimmy decided to join all on his own."

"Where are you?"

"I will call you when I can give you a more satisfactory answer," Jenny told him. "But for now, you don't need to know. And don't try and trace the phone. I'm turning it off again." And with that, she hung up on him.

"Gibbs is gonna kill me," Tony muttered as soon as she did so.

"Us," Palmer added in the same wide-eyed and fearful tone.

"Where do you want to go now?" Tariq asked, cutting across their conversation.

"Give Giorgio a call," Jenny told him. "We need to go to Somalia."

"Give me until midday and I will get you there."

---

Fury was definitely a word in Gibbs' dictionary. He was furious—at Tony for lying to him; at Jenny for helping him; at Vance for not informing him that Ziva was missing. He left his dropped sandpaper on the floor and stormed up the stairs into his kitchen. He had spoken to Jenny. _Jenny_.

He hadn't heard her voice in almost ten years. It was the same woman that walked out on him, leaving him with nothing but a letter and a broken heart. He'd heard of her triumphs and successes on the other side of the world, sure, but he never thought that he would meet up with her again. And under such grave circumstances.

After calling everyone in, he drove back to NCIS HQ on autopilot. Even taking the elevator and walking into the bullpen with a cup of coffee was done automatically. He almost couldn't believe how much he could achieve without even thinking about it. The bullpen was empty when he arrived, but he knew that McGee, Abby and Ducky wouldn't be far behind.

Surely enough, McGee arrived first—tired and confused, but punctual nonetheless.

"What's going on, boss?" he asked, yawning immediately after.

Gibbs didn't answer and instead walked over to the young agent, grabbed him by his shoulders and sat him down roughly at his desk, pointing to his computer at the same time. "As soon as DiNozzo's cell phone comes back on, I want to know where he is."

"Um, okay," McGee replied unsurely and turned his PC on.

Abby arrived with Ducky not a moment later.

"What's going on, Gibbs?" Abby asked immediately and very enthusiastically. It appeared that she had no qualms with getting up hours before the sun was even due to rise and going to work.

"Go down to your lab and find out everything you can about an NCIS Special Agent Jennifer Shepard," Gibbs ordered, pointing in the direction of the elevator to her lab. "I wanna know exactly where she is right now!"

"Sure, Gibbs. You only have to _ask_," Abby told him, emphasising the last word vehemently.

"Jethro?" Ducky asked confusedly. Naturally, he knew the name, but he had not heard it in almost ten years.

Gibbs shot him a look and then walked back towards the elevator with his coffee. Ducky knew all too well what that meant—it was time for a private conversation in the conference room—and followed him. Not more than a moment after the doors shut, Gibbs switched on the emergency stop.

"Are you planning on telling anyone what's going on, Jethro? Does it have something to do with Tony and Jimmy emailing in sick and running off to Italy?"

"I knew that there was something off when I read that email," Gibbs muttered.

"So they took a vacation in Italy. I've seen you calmer with worse."

"They're not in Italy, Duck. I don't know where they are."

"Jenny?"

"I spoke to her half an hour ago. She called from DiNozzo's cell."

"Jenny is with Tony and Jimmy?"

"Yep."

"And you don't know where?"

"Nope."

"Well, did she at least tell you why?" Ducky asked exasperatedly.

Gibbs took a short pause before answering. "Ziva."

"What about her?"

"Jenny said that she's missing."

Ducky didn't say anything this time and just nodded.

"She took my agent with her!"

"I am sure that Tony made the decision to lie to you and go gallivanting off into the sunset to find his lost maiden alone," Ducky told him.

"Yeah, well, he shoulda come to me first."

"And what would you have done? Told the Director? I'm sorry to say, Jethro, but I don't think that man would do anything to help you out here. Tony going UA with Jenny and Mr Palmer was probably the best chance he had at finding Ziva."

"And he took Palmer with him?! What in the hell was he thinking?"

"You shouldn't underestimate Jimmy. If you remember, I travelled around Europe with you and Agent Shepard sometimes and still managed to survive. If we could survive that, I don't think that any harm will come to our young protégés."

"We have to find them, Duck."

"Oh, I agree. And I'm sure that you will. But I just have one question—how do you propose we deal with Director Vance?"

---

It was cold, almost like an icy breeze flowing over hard, wintery tundras, but she could not feel a thing. Feeling had gone within the first few days. Emotion had left her even sooner. In fact, there was only one thing that Ziva David was holding on to. Hope.

It was crazy, she knew that. She had never hoped for anything before and had never even learnt what the simple one-syllable, four-letter word meant, but she felt it. She wasn't sure how long it had been since they'd asked her any questions. The first few days, while she was still on the ship, were mainly about NCIS, but also Mossad, and they were more often than not followed by a series of harsh beatings when she did not yield any answers. She had screamed as they hit her, burnt her, raped her; but she never did say anything at all to them.

Now she was lying in a cold and dark four-by-four closet in what she could only assume was a warehouse of some sort. She wasn't even sure what country she was in. They had drugged her while they were on the move and left her in the back of a truck, bound and gagged. They had given her one meal a day, and a bottle of dirty water, but otherwise she only ever saw them when they had come to interrogate or simply just assault her in some way or another again. Her clothes were reduced to rags, bloody and ripped from the speed at which they removed them.

She could not see her face, but she could feel the swelling that resulted from the first few days of beatings on the ship. Every time they asked her about NCIS, every time they struck her when she failed to respond, she would force her mind elsewhere, force herself to remember what she left behind when Gibbs and Tony left Tel Aviv without her. Her mind was swimming with images of Gibbs, Abby, McGee, Ducky, Palmer. _Tony_.

Ziva missed her partner more than she would ever let herself admit. Despite the circumstances, she found herself hoping that by some miracle, some far gone chance, they would come and rescue her. Take her away from all the evil that had been done to her and miraculously make it all better. She longed to see their faces again, perhaps even just once more before she would be killed, but none more so than Tony. Her happy place always seemed to be with him. The best times of her life always seemed to, in some way, involve his presence. She knew, in her deeply buried heart, that, through all the pain and torture she had endured, he was the one that kept her going. He was the one.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and thanks to those who went across and read Cryptocracy. You may notice that chapters are short in this story (shorter than what I normally write) and that's so I can update faster. So please review this chapter and hopefully you'll get another tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

As it turned out, Tariq had come through for them and by midday they were back on the same Gulfstream jet that had flown them to Algiers, now flying away from it to Mogadishu. And yet again, the trip was not a silent affair.

"Who recovered the files from Abin Tabal's laptop?" Jenny asked, not five minutes after they were in the air.

"Abby and McGoo," Tony replied.

"Abby Sciuto?" Jenny asked, ignoring the latter part of the comment.

"Yeah, you know her?"

"I know her work. Apparently she's one of the best in her field."

"Oh, she is," Palmer told her.

"Great. Give me your phone," Jenny ordered in Palmer's direction. A little disconcerted by her manner, Palmer handed the phone over quickly. The two men watched on anxiously as the red-haired agent scrolled through his phonebook and stopped on one name. They had their suspicions, but they weren't sure who she called until they heard the bouncy voice on the other end.

"Oh my God! Jimmy! Ducky and Gibbs are freaking! Where the hell are you?! I've never seen Gibbs so mad. Well, actually, I have, but he called us into work at three in the morning. Three!"

Jenny let the rant continue for a few seconds before cutting across her. "Is this Abby?"

"Um, yes. Who is this? What have you done with Jimmy?!"

"Your friend is fine. I'm NCIS Special Agent Jenny Shepard."

"Oh... I've been looking for you," Abby said slowly. Jenny could hear typing in the background. "Gibbs told me to find you and _voila_, I've found you."

"You traced the call. Well, be very aware, Miss Sciuto, that we will not be here for very long at all," Jenny told her. "Tell Agent Gibbs that I _will_ call him when I have something more."

"What about Tony and Jimmy? Are they okay?"

"They're just fine."

"What are you even doing in Africa? Tony and Jimmy do not take vacations in Africa."

"We're not on vacation, Abby," Tony yelled, hoping that it would reach the Goth chick on the other end of the line.

Sighing, Jenny put the phone on to speaker.

"You're not on vacation. Of course you're not. Otherwise Gibbs would be normal instead of in freaky overdrive. What are you doing?"

"Looking for Ziva," Tony admitted. "She's missing."

They heard Abby gasp. "Oh no."

"Look, Abby, we need your help to find her," Jenny blurted out before Abby could give her the third degree on where, how, when and why. "I need to know everything about what you pulled off Abin Tabal's laptop."

"There was so much-"

"Anything from Somalia? Any contacts there or people he may have met up with?"

After a few more moments of voracious typing, Abby answered. "There was a billing address to a distributing company based out of Mogadishu," she told Jenny, reading off her computer screen.

"Company's name? CEO? Address?"

"Transnational Distributors Africa, run by Ali Hassan Al-Tubar, and..." She paused for a second. "Located at 87 Midar Street, Mogadishu."

"Great, thank you, Abby. Can you see what else you can find out about this company?"

"Sure. You got a number I can call you on?"

"Nice try. I'll call you," Jenny replied, a smile on her face. "And, Abby? Can we keep this between us? I promise to update Gibbs on the situation when I can."

"Okay, Agent Shepard," Abby said in a huff. Tony and Palmer knew her disappointed tone all too well.

Jenny hung up and looked over at Tariq, who was gazing out the window. "Tariq? Can you get us transport around Mogadishu? I have an address."

"I can do anything. You know that," Tariq called back with a smile.

"Who do you work for?" Tony asked, mildly amused.

"The CIA," was Tariq's reply. "Do you think I could get those passports, that money and this plane if I didn't? I am from Egypt, but I studied in New York for many years. That is where your CIA 'hooked me up' as you Americans would say."

"Something like that," Tony put in.

"I am surprised that we have not had any contact with Mossad," Tariq said in Jenny's direction.

"Wait until we get to Mogadishu," Jenny answered, looking up from her laptop in the booth seat across from Tony. "Amit Hadar will probably rear his ugly head."

"Wait a sec," Tony interrupted. "Mossad Officer Amit Hadar?"

"Yeah. Please tell me that you don't know him," Jenny responded hastily.

"Uh, I do. We met in Israel. He drove me from the airstrip to Mossad headquarters and interrogated me the whole way."

"Well that makes things quite possibly more difficult," Tariq put in.

"We'll have to work around it," Jenny told them.

"Why is it such a problem?" asked Tony, clearly confused.

Jenny shot him a look. "I have worked with Hadar many times. He's a good officer, but he always, _always_, has an ulterior motive. And he doesn't know anything about me. I know that Amit Hadar is his real identity, but he believes that I am a brunette with olive skin and about three inches taller. CIA Agent Jessie Sager."

"He thinks you're CIA?"

"If he even suspects NCIS involvement in this, Mossad'll shut us down faster than you can tie your Jimmy's shoelaces together," Jenny told him.

"Has he always thought that you were CIA?"

"At first, I told him that I worked for the State Department, but diplomats don't readily produce a SIG Sauer to take out terrorists with. A CIA agent worked in nicely and it usually gets a little more attention out here than NCIS."

"Do you think that Hadar will be in Somalia?" Tariq cut across with, returning the topic of discussion back to the more pressing subject.

"I'll be surprised if he's not behind this whole party," Jenny replied.

"What do you mean?" Tony asked quickly, but neither Jenny nor Tariq answered him.

"I heard along the Mossad grapeline-" Tariq began.

"Grapevine," Jenny corrected.

"Yes, that Hadar was responsible for extracting Michael Rivkin the night that he was killed," Tariq finished.

"What?!" Tony ejected, but his question was, again, ignored.

"Who placed that order?" Jenny asked.

"Not someone in Tel Aviv," Tariq replied. "Maybe someone in Washington."

"Ziva?" Tony questioned, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"Probably," Tariq answered.

"It was her," Palmer piped up. The entire cabin turned to stare at him, waiting for further explanation. "I was in the lab when McGee was telling Abby. Gibbs had him run a back trace on Ziva's cell phone. The last number that she called before 911 was to an Israeli phone registered to Amit Hadar."

"I called 911 from Ziva's phone," Tony admitted. "I dropped mine somewhere during the fight."

There was silence for a few moments. Nobody knew what to say, and the awkward tension between them over the event was taking hold. Eventually, Tony voiced an unanswered question that he had posed earlier. "Why do you think that Mossad is going to be in Somalia?"

"They'll be looking for Ziva too but for different reasons," Jenny replied. "If she's still alive, her capture will yield a great deal of intel."

"And considering the ease of her capture..." Tariq let his voice trail off. Of course, they had nothing substantial to back that theory, but it was in the back of all of their minds.

---

Abby was working hastily in her lab. She didn't even hear the elevator arrive on her floor and Gibbs walk into her lab. With Android Lust blaring in the background, she didn't notice him until she turned and collided with him.

"What do you got, Abs?" Gibbs shouted over the loud stereo.

Sighing, Abby lowered the volume and then made a grab for the Caf-Pow that was in his hands. He didn't let her have it and moved away. "What's this on the screen? Somalia?"

Abby, looking wide-eyed and certainly crazy, dashed towards her computer and changed the window open on the screen. But the damage had been done. "Look, Gibbs. There's not much that I can tell you."

"What can you tell me?"

"Like I said—not much. I can't tell you that I got a phone call from Special Agent Shepard in Libya and I definitely can't tell you that she wanted information from Tabal's laptop about any links the terrorist group had in Somalia."

"Anything else you can't tell me, Abs?"

"That I found a link to a distributing company in Mogadishu and that Ziva's missing."

"I already knew that, Abby," he replied heavy-handedly.

"About Mogadishu? Wow... you're more intuitive than I thought."

"About Ziva," he told her.

As shock turned to disdain, she hit him lightly on the forearm. "And you didn't tell me, Gibbs?!"

"I came down to tell you now, Abs. What else do you have for me? Where are they?"

"Well, they _were_ in Libya when she called. But from the location at the beginning of the call to the end, they moved really quickly. I think they were in a plane."

"Heading to?"

"East? Somalia's in that direction, Gibbs."

"I know where Somalia is, Abby. It was also the place that Ziva was last seen in."

"Tony will find her, Gibbs. He won't stop until he does."

Gibbs glanced back at her but did not reply to her comment. "You find out anything else?"

"I was combing through Agent Shepard's file—well, the parts of it that weren't blacked out—and I learnt that you two were partners ten years ago."

"And?"

"She's a very pretty redhead, Gibbs. I bet that you noticed."

"If any of their cell phones come back on, I wanna know about it," Gibbs told her and placed the Caf-Pow down on her desk before leaving.

"Wait, Gibbs. What are you gonna do about Ziva?" Abby called out.

His head popped back around the corner. "Speak to the Director. We will find her, Abby."

"I hope so," the scientist muttered to herself as soon as he was gone.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Sorry that I didn't get around to updating last night, so I'm updating earlier today. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I really appreciate it.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

**Chapter Seven**

The streets were dusty but very much abuzz with activity as Somali citizens, African and Arab alike, made their way through the busy street in the nation's capital. Tony was overheating in the three decade old car with the windows lowered as far down as they would go—not even halfway—and nothing more than hot air exuding through the abysmal excuse for air conditioning. His fiery fellow NCIS colleague was in the passenger seat next to him, gazing out the windscreen in the direction of the building they were staking out.

He didn't actually know why, but he knew that it wasn't the address of the warehouse that Abby had given them on the phone. As soon as they'd gotten off the plane in Mogadishu, Jenny had received a phone call on one of her many cell phones and walked out of earshot to answer it. She came back and discussed something very quietly and quickly with Tariq in Arabic. Palmer looked at them as blankly as Tony and not two moments later, Tariq was ordering two men to drive over a pair of very old cars. Then Tariq had taken Palmer and Jenny had taken him to the street they were currently parked on. Tariq and Palmer were on the opposite side of the street to him and Jenny, but in essence, doing exactly the same thing—waiting, and not much else.

"What are we doing here, Jen?" Tony asked for the fourth time, while scratching underneath the cast on his left forearm with a 2B pencil.

"Patience," was her answer yet again. She was doing her best to ignore the screech of wood on plaster and skin.

But Tony had had enough. He ripped the pencil out of his cast and threw it on the floor. "Patience?! What are we doing here?! We should be at the address Abby gave us, looking for Ziva!"

"It's already been searched and destroyed," Jenny replied without taking her eyes off the building.

"What?"

"There's no point going there, Tony. She's not there and it won't tell us anything."

"Searched by us?"

Jenny released a small and short laugh. "No."

"Who?"

At first, she didn't want to reply. He wasn't read into any of this and yet she'd taken him along anyway. And he and his friend were dangerously underqualified and inexperienced in this line of work. But, seeing the look of sheer desperation on his face, she benefited him with some knowledge. "Casey's people intercepted a phone call from the manager of this branch of Transnational Distributors to a man by the name of Emir Ali Hassan from Aden."

"Emir Ali Hassan? Should this name mean anything to me?"

"Probably not, but you've met him before," she answered. He was confused and she could see it, so she clarified her statement. "Amit Hadar."

"He's here? He cleared the other warehouse?"

"Our director gave the same information we retrieved from Tabal's laptop to Director David. It'll make beating Mossad to the punch all the more difficult."

"Maybe we should be working with them."

"You've never worked with Mossad before, have you?" Jenny shot at him.

"I worked with Ziva every day," he replied indignantly.

"Very different to working with an active Mossad operative. I worked with Ziva, too, and I have had as many problems or... creative differences, with her as I do with many of their other agents."

"How so?"

"I believe that you've worked with Trent Kort before? When Morrow was still Director?"

Tony did not say anything, giving Jenny the only answer that she needed.

"It's not so different out here. Everyone's got a prerogative and their own agenda. It makes interagency cooperation nigh impossible."

"That him there?" Tony asked, pointing in the direction of a man dressed in jeans and blue shirt walking towards the entrance of the building.

Jenny picked up the binoculars and peered through them. "Yep. Time for me to go."

"And me?" Tony asked as Jenny opened the passenger door.

"Stay here and turn the car on," Jenny replied as she closed the door. "And don't let him see you," she added through the partially open window before walking across the busy street.

Tony watched her walk past the building, stopping at a street vendor nearby and looking at the fake designer sunglasses and handbags cheaply on offer. Jenny never did follow Hadar into the office, and instead walked over to Palmer's car and got into the backseat. A few moments later, his phone rang.

"Tony," Jenny said as soon as he answered the phone. "I'm gonna pick up Hadar when he walks out and have a chat to him. I want you to go into the building as an Italian wine merchant. Tell the mananger, Yusuf Ahmed Sharif, that you are interesting in exporting your product to nearby countries and what he could do about it. I want cities and addresses if you can get them. Make sure he know that you are willing to pay a lot of money."

"Alone?"

"Tariq will be waiting outside for you." And she hung up.

Tony was left sighing and waiting until Hadar walked out of the building ten minutes later. He saw Palmer's car drive up beside the walking man and stop. Not two seconds later, Hadar got into the backseat with Jenny and Tariq got out of the front passenger seat. Palmer, who was driving, then took off down the street and around the corner, Tony guessed on Jenny's orders.

He stepped out of the car and put his grey jacket on, despite the overwhelming heat. He preferred that the manager not see his cast and he wanted to make a better impression in a suit, so the heat was something he'd have to bear. After all, he knew that Ziva was suffering a hell of a lot more than he.

Nodding ever so slightly to Tariq, he walked into the building's lobby and searched the noticeboard for directions to Sharif's office. He made his way quickly to the man's office on the first floor, knocked once and entered.

"_Scusa,"_ Tony began with almost immediately.

"_na'ham,"_ the man replied.

"_Uh, non parlo l'arabica,"_ Tony said unsurely in the thick Italian accent his grandfather had. "English?"

"I speak English, yes," he answered. "Can I help you?"

"My name is Antonio DiNardo," he told him, extending his right hand, which the man took and shook. "I was told that I could see you about exporting my product to other countries across the Horn of Africa. Even North Africa."

"Who directed you here?" The man asked very suspiciously. Tony saw him reach for something under his desk.

"A French friend of mine in Algiers," Tony lied, hoping it would work, and if he didn't, at least he would've given his life to help Ziva's cause. This whole thing was harder than James Bond made it look.

"And your product?"

"Vintage wine. I have a shipment arriving here in two days time."

"I will assume that everything is in order?"

"I can have manifests to you in a day. Where are we looking at?"

"I can get products anywhere you want. Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Libya. Anywhere."

Tony jumped back to his high school geography. Perhaps Ziva had been taken to another country nearby with a shipment of products they were exporting—or even a cache of weapons for extremists in the Horn of Africa. "Ethiopia? You go there recently?"

But this only made Sharif more suspicious. Again, he reached into the drawer of his desk, but this time he produced a weapon. Tony had his SIG stuck in the back of his pants, but there was no way he could reach it time.

Snickering a little, Sharif brought the gun up to eye level and Tony shut his eyes. He waited for, anticipated pain, as he heard a gunshot ring out.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Hehehe... I'm gonna hold Tony hostage here. Review or I'll kill him *insert wide-eyed maniacal glare followed by a high pitched laugh here*. Okay, though, seriously review and show this young writer with nothing better to do some love.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

Gibbs took the stairs to the Director's office two at a time. He knew that Vance wanted to see him and he needed to see Vance. Although it appeared to be a win-win situation, Gibbs knew that, as always, he would come out the losing party. He didn't even knock as he walked past the secretary and barged into Vance's office.

"I was waiting for that," Vance commented from behind his desk. He stood up and walked over to the conference table, taking a seat on the far end. Gibbs reciprocated by sitting down at the other end. "You wanna tell me why you called your team in at 0300 with no case? Or where the hell DiNozzo and Palmer are?"

"I think you already know, Leon," Gibbs answered.

"I wanna hear your story."

Gibbs grimaced slightly but answered. It was too early in the day for him to disobey the direct order. "I got a phone call."

"From?"

"NCIS Special Agent Jennifer Shepard."

Vance smiled and Gibbs could have sworn that he heard a short chuckle. "Your partner from the old days."

It wasn't a question. Gibbs knew that. Vance knew more than he'd ever reveal.

"She's been on vacation since Monday after returning from our office in Bahrain," Vance told him. "Then she called her friends from the CIA and we lose her after that."

"You lost her?"

"Only for a short time. She was bred for counterintelligence after all."

"She's in Somalia," Gibbs put in.

"I know," Vance answered. He stood up silently and walked over to his desk, picking up a file before sitting back down and pushing it across the table to Gibbs. Opening it slightly, Gibbs saw that most of the information was blacked out, and the lines that weren't revealed very little about Jenny's expedition in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

"That's all I could get out of the CIA," Vance told him as he read. "Most of them out there think that she's a CIA agent, Mossad included, and she works heavily with their agency. You'd think that by now she'd have a cushy desk job here in Washington. Or perhaps something's stopping her from coming back."

Gibbs didn't answer. He didn't even flinch. Vance had hoped for an answer, a reaction, something, but he got zilch, so he pressed on.

"Agent DiNozzo and Mr Palmer are with her. I can understand DiNozzo going, but Palmer? What the hell kind of decision was that?"

"I don't know, Leon," Gibbs replied irritably. "DiNozzo's maybe."

"What do you want to do about it?"

"You're asking me?"

Vance smirked superiorly. "No. I already know what you plan to do, Gibbs."

"Then why the hell are you asking?"

"I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For you to ask? You obviously wanna go, help your agent out."

"And? You gonna let me?"

If looks could kill, the glare that Gibbs was sending in Vance's direction would have put a bullet through his heart. Regardless of this, Vance still said no.

Gibbs stood up and stormed out, not even bothering to shut the door behind him, like a toddler having a tantrum. Vance sighed and shook his head as he closed the door to his office. He knew that he only had a few hours to sort things out before Gibbs went gallivanting off to North Africa with the remainder of his team. He picked up his phone as he sat back at his desk and dialled the sixth number on his speed dial—Eli David.

---

Palmer felt nervous, his hands already sweating, as Jenny barked orders for him to make a left at the end of the street. He grimaced slightly as he watched Tony get out of the car and move past Tariq on the side of the road. Their guest, Amit Hadar, did not speak for several minutes as Palmer initiated their escape to a more private zone. Jenny directed him out of the city until he finally arrived at an abandoned lot in the south of Mogadishu. Stopping the car and putting it into park, he remained silent as the two covert operatives in the back seat discussed business.

"So what are you doing in Somalia, Agent Sager?" Hadar asked, beginning their healthy chat.

"The same thing as you. Trying to shut down this terrorist training camp it appears we've heard so much about."

"Hmm, and a month ago your country did not even know it existed."

"We do now, Amit. And we're fast learners. How did you find out about the link to Somalia?"

Hadar smirked. "Information from one of your agencies."

"Which one?" Jenny spurted out, attempting, and succeeding, to make Hadar believe that this was new to her.

"NCIS."

"Right. Of course. So why else are you here? You lose something?"

Hadar smiled again. _Of course she knew_, he told himself. "You know."

It wasn't a question and Jenny knew that. She returned the smile. "Yes, I do. The fact that you're still looking for her tells me that her capture may have been the plan all along. You running out of intel?"

"No," he shot back incredulously. "It was never the plan and I resent the insinuation."

"Then what was the plan? Grapevine says that she was caught easily enough."

"It is not your concern," Hadar retorted bitterly. Jenny had hit a nerve and she knew it. And his explanation only expressed further the disdain he felt. "You know that she is Director David's daughter."

"Is someone in trouble?"

He looked at her and didn't answer.

"Is that someone you, Amit?" Jenny asked contemptuously.

"What does it matter to you? Is she the reason you are here in Somalia? Did NCIS ask you to come?"

"No," she lied. Well, it was sort of the truth. NCIS didn't ask her to go anywhere—she made that decision herself. "But unfortunately her capture means that she can reveal sensitive information about American domestic agencies, their counterterrorism procedures and response to a major attack. The sort of information that she could provide would be invaluable to them." And she found herself praying again that the terrorists had not learnt anything from Ziva.

"You are assuming that she will tell them something," Hadar commented. "Ziva will not break. She is strong."

"There's only so much the human body can take," Jenny said in reply. "If she does break and start haemorrhaging information, it will be very serious for us."

"And yet you always tell me that this kind of..." He searched for the right word. "Specialised interrogation, let us call it, is a waste of time and yields false information. I did not think you would be so worried."

"Where is she?" Jenny cut across with in an off-handed fashion.

"Obviously I don't know," Hadar answered. "But she is not in Somalia. When the trawler she was on, the Indigo Rose, docked in Mogadishu a week ago, all of its cargo was to be transported by land to neighbouring countries."

"Which country was she taken to?"

"We don't know that, but it could be Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Libya, Sudan or Egypt. Perhaps others."

"Good to know. How are you going to find out?"

"I'm hoping that she drops out of the sky wearing a parachute," Hadar responded with a smirk. Jenny felt the overwhelming urge to slap him, but she kept her temper and her flare in check.

It didn't stop her from snarling at him, though. "You've been here for more than a week and you have nothing!"

"I have the ship and where its load was broken up and sent to."

"In a week?!"

"What do you want me to do? She is completely off the radar."

"Look harder," Jenny said as she leant over Hadar and opened up his door, looking at him expectantly. In a defeated manner, he stepped out of the vehicle and Jenny immediately closed the door, ordering Palmer to drive off and leave him in the middle of nowhere.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Okay, so you'll find out what happens to Tony in the next chapter. Please review. We're getting close to finding Ziva.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

He was waiting for the pain. Or lights out. Neither happened.

"You can open your eyes, Tony," a voice came.

Slowly and fearfully, Tony edged one eye open, followed by the other. He turned around and saw a lowered Beretta handgun in Tariq's hand. Turning back, Tony gazed over Sharif's body splayed across his chair. His eyes were wide open and there was a small amount of blood trickling from the bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.

"You were not made for intelligence work, were you, Tony?" Tariq asked as he shoved his gun into the back of his pants.

"I'm a federal agent!"

"Exactly," muttered Tariq. He glided across the room to Sharif's desk and began removing drawers and searching through them.

"What are you looking for?"

"Anything that helps us find your little girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Tony replied indignantly, as he walked to the filing cabinet and began to mimic Tariq's actions.

"Yes, well you could have fooled me," Tariq mumbled under his breath.

Tony heard something, but he wasn't sure what had been said. "What?"

"Nothing," Tariq answered quickly. "Wait a second. I found something." And he pulled a single sheet of paper from the bottom drawer of Sharif's desk.

Tony looked over his shoulder. "It's in Arabic."

"Well then it's a good thing that I can read Arabic," Tariq shot back.

"What does it say?"

"It's the breakup of the shipment on the Indigo Rose."

"The ship that Ziva was on!" It was both a question and a statement.

"Yes."

"Does it say where she's gone?"

Tariq looked up from reading the paper and glared at him.

"Right," Tony murmured bashfully. "That would be too easy. Where did the load go to?"

"Travel is by land to about half a dozen countries by more than two dozen semi-trailers," Tariq told him, reading from the sheet of paper. "There are contact numbers here for each of the drivers and serial numbers for their load."

"We can use that, right?"

"Absolutely," Tariq replied happily. "My people can follow the trail."

"Do you think Ziva left enough of a scent?" Tony asked, following the metaphor.

Tariq looked at him suspiciously, but after understanding the question's meaning, he answered in the same optimistic tone he'd developed in the last minute. "Transporting a hostage across the Horn of Africa and North Africa is not as hard as it sounds, but there are still border protection services operating at the crossings into each country. The drivers would have drugged her and dressed her in a _hijāb_ or _abāya_ and passed her off as a sleeping wife. Or they would have put her in the container and paid off the border protection officers not to search the load. If they were carrying illegal weapons, which is likely, then they probably did that anyway."

"This is good news?"

"It means that there is an ink trail left behind," Tariq told him.

"Paper trail," Tony corrected.

"I'm sorry, English is not my first language," Tariq replied with a slight smile. "Come on. We need to get out of here."

"What about the body?" Tony asked, looking back into the room they were leaving.

"Did you not hear? Yusuf Ahmed Sharif was meeting with an Emir Ali Hassan."

Tony smiled as he followed Tariq back to their parked car across the road. Tony slipped into the driver's seat while Tariq hopped in the other side and pulled out his cell phone.

"Drive around somewhere," Tariq told him. He scrolled through his phonebook and stopped on Jenny's number. It only rang once before she answered.

"How's Sharif?" she asked as soon as she answered, the phone in a superior and all-knowing tone.

"Incapacitated," Tariq answered.

And Jenny knew exactly what that meant. "I hope you got something out of him before you killed him."

"He was going shoot Tony. What would you have had me do?"

"Did you learn anything?"

"Where the shipment went," Tariq answered.

Jenny was quiet for a few seconds before replying. "Meet back at the airfield."

"You remember the way to the airfield?" Tariq asked Tony as he hung up the phone.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "That where we're going next?"

Tariq nodded and turned up the radio. After a few moments, Tony was recoiling at the patchy signal they were receiving.

"The radio is not so good in this car," Tariq pointed out needlessly and turned it off. "Some conversation perhaps?"

"About?"

"Why do we not start with what you are doing here?"

"You already know that. I came to find Ziva."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?"

"You are injured. You will probably lose your job. You have never undertaken an operation much like this before. Not all the way out here. You dragged along a friend who is nothing more than a medical examiner's assistant-"

"Look, Jimmy volunteered. I told him not to come, but he really wanted to. And he's a doctor. He will come in handy when we find Ziva."

"He is a coroner, but you are right. He will be useful when we find Ziva."

Tony slammed on the brakes and in one fluid movement grabbed Tariq by the shirt. "We will find her alive," he warned in a low and dangerous voice.

Tariq just smirked and threw up Tony's arms quickly. Tony turned his eyes back to the road and slowly pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

"You really love her," Tariq stated plainly after a few moments of silence.

Tony shook his head and sneered, thinking back to the argument he'd had with Ziva outside the Mossad building in Tel Aviv a few weeks earlier.

"Did you ever tell her that?" Tariq asked.

Tony didn't answer him and gripped the steering wheel much tighter.

"Are you going to tell her when we find her?"

Again, Tony did his best to ignore the question.

"You should tell her."

"She doesn't want to hear it from me," Tony mumbled in barely a whisper.

But Tariq heard him. "No? Rivkin, perhaps? You should not feel bad about killing him, you know. I read your report. You had to do it."

"You read my report?"

"I'm CIA, Tony. Expect that I know pretty much everything. Especially about this op."

"Right."

"She was going to have Mossad extract him when you killed him. You probably think that if she had been a little quicker making that phone call, or you had been a little later in going to her apartment to talk to her, then maybe it would not have happened like it did. She would not have had to return to Israel."

"Something like that."

"Your timing was wrong. Timing is just... always wrong for people who are supposed to be together."

"Are you speaking from experience?" Tony asked, noticing the downtrodden expression that Tariq was wearing.

"It is not important," Tariq answered quickly. "We are here."

Tony knew this already; after all, he was driving, but decided to ask Tariq about it again another time. Tariq exited the car first and placed the sheet of paper he'd removed from Sharif's office in Jenny's hand. Tony saw them exchange words and then get a laptop out of the jet. Slowly, he got out of the car and walked over to the other one, leaning coolly on the side of it next to Palmer.

"How was your afternoon?" Palmer asked.

"I nearly got shot," Tony replied.

Palmer looked at him with his mouth gaping open.

"You're catching flies. And don't worry, I'm fine. What did you do?"

"I had to drive Jenny around," Palmer replied.

"Call Abby," Jenny called out in the direction of both Tony and Palmer.

"Okay," Tony replied, quickly getting out his phone, switching it back on and dialling his favourite lab tech's phone number. Placing it on speaker phone, it rang thrice before a happy voice answered.

"TONY!! How's Somalia? Is it stinking hot?"

"You're on speaker phone, Abby," Tony told her.

"Abby, I need your help again," Jenny spoke up.

"Shoot. My babies and I are ready for anything you throw at us. And McGee's here, too."

"The CIA is rerouting you information," Jenny informed her. "I'm going to send you a list of phone numbers that I need you to check the records of. Correlate it with this number I'm going to give you." She cracked open the back of the cell phone that Tariq removed from Sharif's jacket pocket and checked the number on the sim card. "+252 161 098 778."

"We're doing it right now," McGee told them.

"Got anything?" Jenny asked after a few minutes of nothing but rapid typing on the other end.

"A series of daily phone calls, sometimes twice or more, to a man by the name of Salim Khalid," Abby told them.

Jenny immediately looked up at Tariq who responded by rapidly typing something into the laptop. "He is on the list," he told them quickly.

"Where'd you get the list from?" Tony asked.

"A friend in Mossad," Tariq replied and then turned to Jenny. "Not so good for Ziva, then. This man has quite the ... rap sheet, I believe it is called. But he keeps his detainees alive for a while."

"Where is he, Abby?" Jenny asked in the general direction of Tony's cell phone.

"Unsure. His cell phone is off now or out of range. I can get something more for you when it comes up again."

"Wait a sec," Jenny said, moving back to the sheet that Tariq had taken from Sharif. "What's Khalid's number?"

"+291 301 345 675," Abby answered.

Jenny matched it up with the shipment addresses on the sheet of paper. The addresses were not explicit and coded well, but it was a code that Jenny had seen and deciphered before, so she extracted the required information from it easily. "I know where Ziva is," she whispered slowly, before speaking up. "Abby, tell Gibbs to fly to Le Monier ASAP. I know where our next stop is."

* * *

Author's Notes: Not long now until they find Ziva. And a fuzzy new character makes an appearance up next. Please review.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Tony had actually been anxious to get on the plane again. They were now about to land in the country where Jenny was so sure they would find Ziva. Tariq and Jenny were in deep conversation not long after she got off a half-hour phone call from one of her other cell phones. Giorgio, the pilot, warned them that they were about to land and to strap themselves in.

Twenty minutes later, they were taxiing on the tarmac and there was yet another black sedan waiting for them. Tony was left wondering how Jenny managed everything this time, in just a few hours.

"Casey came through for us again," Jenny commented to Tariq as she walked to the front passenger door while Tariq took the driver's side. Once again, Tony and Palmer were left idly in the back seat.

"Where are we going?" Tony asked, leaning forward between the two front seats to talk to Jenny.

"Meet up with another contact."

"Why?" Palmer asked. "You know where Ziva is, don't you? Shouldn't we go there?"

"Exactly," Tony shot out.

"She's not there," Jenny told him.

"Anything illicit, such as weapons, drugs or hostages, is always held at a secondary location," Tariq explained.

"Do you know where?" Tony ejected.

"My contact does," Tariq answered for Jenny with a smile. Still smiling widely, he turned his eyes back to the road and made his way through the dusty streets of Asmara, Eritrea. Tony was almost sticking his head out the window, absorbing the culture and lifestyle of yet another North African Arab state. It was almost 2200h, local time, and he was exhausted, but he knew that he would not sleep until he found Ziva. And yet, he felt his eyes drooping as he let the motion of the machine carry him away.

"We're here, Tony," Jenny announced, cutting through his dozing.

He looked up, confused. "Are you sure?" They were quite literally in the middle of nowhere. The only light anywhere was coming from their headlights, and there was nothing to be seen in the deserted small town. It was almost like an old abandoned Western town, he decided, and looked to Jenny for instructions.

"This way," she told them as Tariq turned off the engine and headlights, leaving them in the dark. It took a few moments, but he eventually switched on a flashlight and followed Jenny in the direction of a dark building.

Instead of going to the front door of the small, two-story house, Jenny walked around to a door in the ground and, with a key from Tariq's pocket, she opened it up.

"Basement?" Tony asked.

"More like a cellar," Jenny told him. She looked at Tariq and signalled for him to go down first. Jenny followed with Palmer.

Tony, who was left until last, unconsciously quoted, "I've got a bad feeling about this." And then he followed them down into the dark hole, closing the door behind him. There were loose steps below him and he cautiously descended into the room below. The creaking of the wooden rungs as he moved had him a little on edge, but no more so than sliding down into a world of unknowns and darkness. He was starting to liken this whole affair to the fires of Hell.

"I've been expecting you," a voice came from the dark as its owner switched on a small light bulb in the middle of the roof. The place was more like a cave than anything else.

"Cliché much, Ben?" Jenny asked with a smile. The man, who, Tony noticed, was wearing jeans and a black long sleeve t-shirt, had very shaven dark hair and twinkling green eyes, and was seated on an old, downtrodden armchair in front of an unlit fireplace. There was a rug on the floor, which looked like it was made locally, two more moth-eaten armchairs and a cupboard over to the side, as well as a small desk and chair with a laptop nearby.

"I've been getting bored," Ben replied, standing up to greet them. "Please, have a seat, gentlemen," he said, talking to Tony and Palmer. "I'm only sorry that I don't have more to offer." Tony smiled at him and sat on the desk by the laptop and Palmer sat on the chair. Jenny moved over to one of the armchairs and took a seat, but Tariq rushed forward, shaking Ben's hand and embracing him in a man-hug.

"_Shalom_, my friend," Tariq greeted.

"_as-salām al-laīkom_," Ben replied, and they both sat down in opposing armchairs.

"Shall I make the introductions?" Jenny proposed. "This is NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo and his colleague, Jimmy Palmer. And this is Mossad Officer Ben-Gurion Moshe."

"Please call me Tony," the NCIS Agent asked of Ben, standing and holding his hand out to shake.

"Then please call me Ben," the other man replied, taking his hand in a firm, but friendly, grip.

"Your English is very good," Palmer observed as both men sat back down.

"I was born in Tel Aviv, but my family moved to New York when I was four and then back to Israel when I was eighteen," Ben explained. "I have dual citizenship."

"Do you know why we're here?" Jenny asked, bringing their conversation back to business.

"I've heard rumours. I just hoped that they weren't true. Is Ziva really missing?"

"Yes she is, Ben," Jenny told her with a look of great sympathy. One that left Tony confused. _Just who was this man to Ziva_, he wondered.

Ben closed his eyes in pain as he grasped the shock. He thought it would be so, but he never wanted to believe it. Finally, he forced himself back into the conversation. After all, he wasn't going to help Ziva by standing around and worrying about her. "She's here in Eritrea?"

"She was in Somalia and we tracked her here," Tariq explained.

"Terrorism?"

"The training camp Rivkin was after."

"I never got any details of Michael's operation beyond getting him into Yemen," Ben replied. "Is he here too?"

"No," Jenny answered him, with another look of sympathy. "Michael Rivkin is dead."

"He get caught too? When I left him in Aden a few months ago, I knew that he was in a bit of trouble. His mind was chaotic and he was getting sloppy. I told Ziva but I don't know if she could've done anything about it."

"He wasn't caught," Jenny explained hesitantly. She knew that Rivkin was a past friend of Ben's and wasn't sure how he would react. "He attacked Tony..."

"And you survived?" Ben asked, looking in Tony's direction.

Tony looked up at him, expecting to see anger, but instead, he received a look of admiration. "He was drunk," Tony answered quickly and defensively. "I didn't even notice. He broke my arm." And with that, Tony lifted up his left arm and revealed his cast.

"Yeah, I saw that," Ben said, still in a state of admiration for Tony's fight. "And I believe that he would have attacked you. Were you going to arrest him for espionage?"

"Murder, actually. Of a United States Federal Agent."

"I never should have let him go under to track down that cell," Ben murmured, with some anguish.

"Did anyone else but Ziva know about Rivkin's state of mind?" Jenny asked, intrigue plaguing her voice.

"I spoke to Hadar, but he wasn't willing to pull Michael out. I think Michael's success was his chance to get out of North Africa."

"What do you mean? Amit Hadar wants out of here?"

"Michael Bashan is retiring as the Head of Station at our embassy in Washington. Hadar wants to take his place."

"Is anyone else up for the promotion?" Tariq asked.

"Yes..." Ben answered slowly. "Me."

"Talk about an agenda," Tony muttered. "Do you know who was responsible for Ziva's mission here?"

"Normally it would be, but I'm under with a legend cover right now so I couldn't get above ground to help her out," Ben answered. "The duty would have fallen to Hadar then."

"He screwed the pooch?" Jenny put in.

"Well, not intentionally," Ben answered. "As much as I despise Amit Hadar, I don't think that he would risk that much just to find this training camp."

"It's on the top of Director David's list," Tariq countered.

"So is his daughter," Ben retorted. "I don't think he would put her in unnecessary danger just to find the camp. Or its leader."

"So is Hadar in trouble now?" Jenny asked.

"More than likely. He was negligent. He wanted to get the job done no matter the cost. Tariq, you and I both know that it's not the first time he's done this."

"Let's hope for a better outcome," Tariq thought aloud. Tony shot a look, wondering what the Egyptian-born CIA agent was hiding in his past. He really wanted to ask about Tariq's past with Ben, and, more importantly, Ben's past with Ziva.

"Do you have a terrorist group?" Ben asked.

"We can do you one better," Jenny replied. "A name."

There was silence for a few seconds before Ben spoke up. "Are you trying to build suspense or something?"

Jenny smiled. "Salim Khalid."

And Ben's face fell. His voice dropped several decibels and seriousness took over in his manner. "How long?"

"Twelve days."

"He is very good at getting information and he'll keep his captives alive until he hears what he wants to hear," Ben told them. "Ziva probably knows this and if she's holding on through the torture, she's probably still alive."

"Will she hold on?" Tony asked, his throat dry.

"If she has something to hold on to," Ben replied, explicitly looking in Tony's direction.

Tony looked away. _Great_, his mind pounded at him, _the man has known you for two seconds and already can see your so-obvious feelings for Ziva. Now he'll think that you killed Rivkin out of jealousy too._

Jenny's voice cut across his thoughts. "We have an address, Ben. Primary warehouse here in Asmara."

"She won't be there," Ben told them.

"I know," added Jenny. "Any idea where she will be?"

"What's the company?"

"Transnational Distributors Africa," Tariq answered. "You know where they are based here?"

"Yeah," Ben replied slowly. It looked like he was visibly racking his brain. He looked up at them, a dawning look of realisation on his face. "I know exactly where their secondary location is. We suspected them of stashing weapons there, but we wanted to catch them with a big load before taking it down."

"Where is it?" Jenny asked urgently.

"The coastal city of Massawa," Ben replied. "Border protection is so concerned with what comes in by sea that they tend to overlook what comes in by land. They'd have transported the weapons from a nearby country."

"Like Somalia?"

"Definitely." He strode across to his desk and wrote the address down for them quickly. Jenny grabbed it and thanked him before walking back towards the stairs to leave, the others following her.

"Wait," Ben called out. They turned back to see the man struggling on the edge of making a decision. "I'm coming with you," he finally decided.

"You don't have to," Tariq told him. "Your cover will be compromised."

"It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is finding Ziva. She was like a sister to me for so many years."

"Really?" Tony questioned lightly, trying to act like he wasn't attempting to probe.

"My younger sister, Rachel, was fifteen when my family moved back to Tel Aviv," Ben explained. "She went to school with Ziva, then the IDF, college and finally Mossad. They were best friends, practically inseparable, along with Ziva's sister, Tali."

"What happened? Ziva has never really spoken about her past to me," Tony told him, clearly interested.

"Rachel was killed on a Mossad mission in Cairo four years ago," Ben replied softly. "Ziva left for the US the following week."

"Her brother died that week, too," Jenny commented.

"Yeah, not a good week for Ziva," Ben added with a weak, sympathetic smile. "But, anyway, I'm coming with you."

Tony nodded slightly, but his eyes were fixed on Tariq's movement. The man had looked awkward throughout Ben's story of his sister and was staring downwards and to the right. He wasn't trying to mask his feelings, but Tony could tell that he was trying to keep them hidden. It was something that left Tony wondering exactly what Tariq's connection to Ben, Rachel and Ziva was.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** So updating now after watching the speech in Cairo on CNN... I was gonna do it beforehand, but I thought that it was starting later than it did. So here's your fuzzy new character and I hope you like him. I'll run through each of the characters that I've introduced so people don't get confused:

Tariq Bustani: The Egyptian-born CIA agent that met with our agents in Algeria.

Jack Casy: The CIA agent they met at the cafe in Algiers and the person whose provided them with the jet, money and passports.

Giorgio: The Italian pilot that flies them everywhere.

Ben-Gurion Moshe: The American-Israeli Mossad Officer they just met in Eritrea who has past family ties, or friendship ties, with Ziva.

Gibbs and the rest of the team will come in soon, but remember, they're going to Le Monier. Please review.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

The airfield had quickly become their home base again as they rallied back on the tarmac next to the CIA jet that had been flying them everywhere. Tariq and Ben had suggested that they wait until morning to move in on the secondary location, but Tony had insisted—vigorously insisted—that they go in that night. He was fortunate that Jenny, the self-appointed leader of their travelling band, supported the decision to rescue Ziva that night.

It was very dark, but the airstrip was lit well enough for them to navigate their way around the car and host another discussion on its bonnet.

"How long is the drive to Massawa?" Palmer asked of no particular person.

"Maybe an hour at maximum speed," Ben answered. "It's almost midnight. We can get there one-thirty, but we need to find the best source of entry into building."

"We go in at three; that's when they're awareness will be at its lowest," Jenny ordered.

"And ours?" Palmer put in.

"We have the element of surprise, Mr Palmer, which gives us the advantage," Tariq responded with a twinkling smile.

"We have infrared tech in the jet," Jenny told Ben.

"Weapons?" he asked.

Jenny nodded. "Giorgio's bringing them off now."

And sure enough, their pilot, Giorgio, brought suitcases from their very own well-hidden armoury off the plane. Jenny unzipped them and removed five bullet-proof vests, helmets and goggles, all of which were similar to that used by a SWAT team.

"We're going in heavy," Jenny told them, answering the unvoiced but questionable glances.

The other bag had four H&K MP5 submachine guns, two M14 sniper rifles and two AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifles, as well as a few sidearm pistols, which looked to be Sig Sauers, all unloaded. Tony gazed in at the cache of weapons and looked, impressed, at Jenny.

"Right, what you do want?" Jenny offered.

Tony rushed forward and grabbed his weapon out of the bag first. "I'll take the MP5."

"I thought that you would," Jenny muttered. "Palmer and I are taking the assault rifles, so the choice is yours, gentlemen."

Tariq and Ben looked at each other and then reached forward and grabbed the remaining MP5s and the two sniper rifles, slinging the M14s over their backs.

"Won't that get heavy?" Jenny asked, staring at them incredulously.

"Kidon," Ben replied simply.

"My unit does not have a fancy name," Tariq added immediately after.

Jenny almost laughed, while Tony and Palmer really did actually laugh.

"So I actually get a big gun?" Palmer asked enthusiastically.

Jenny stared back at him and then hesitantly handed him the AR-15 assault rifle. "You know how to use this, don't you?"

"Sure," Palmer said happily as he took the weapon. "Point it at the bad guy and pull the trigger."

Tariq, Tony and Ben burst out laughing, but Jenny didn't look amused.

"Close enough," Ben commented and stepped forward to help Palmer, showing him how to hold and use his weapon. He lifted the younger man's elbows up and pushed his hand back from the edge of the barrel. "Make sure you look at who you are shooting."

"The AR-15 is a semi-automatic weapon and it doesn't have a hair trigger," Jenny told him. "I don't want you to accidentally shoot one of us."

Smiling, Palmer nodded.

"Just follow our lead and you'll be fine," Ben told him.

"What if they start shooting?" Palmer asked nervously.

"Take cover nearby and don't shoot unless you're sure," Ben answered.

"Uh... okay," replied the young medical student unsurely.

"We need you in there, Jimmy," Tony told him firmly. "Ziva will need your skills when we find her."

Palmer nodded, giving his older friend a weak smile.

"Are we ready to go?" Tony asked Jenny. She could see the growing sense of anxiety in his expression and felt a pang of sympathy for him.

"Yes," Jenny replied, half-answering the question, half-ordering them to get a move on.

"_Dove mi vorresti andare?_" Giorgio asked urgently, seeing the others put their weapons and armour in the black car.

"_Qua_," she answered, asking him to remain with the plane there in Eritrea, and then turned back to the others.

"I wanna drive," Tony announced forcefully. Ben shook his head and grabbed the keys off him.

"No," Jenny said, cutting across the beginnings of their argument. "I'm driving." And she shoved Tariq, Ben and Tony in the back seat for arguing about it and let Palmer, the only one who'd remained silent, sit in the front passenger seat.

They sped away from the airport not a minute later as Ben was calibrating the SatNav with the address he had for the secondary Eritrean warehouse that Transnational Distributors Africa had leased under the guise of another company's name. At the speed Jenny was driving, they were going to make it to Massawa before one-thirty. There wasn't a lot of discussion in the car on the way there—everyone knew what they were going to do and were too on edge to talk about it. Ben had tried to crack jokes, citing that a little levity at the start of a mission was always good for the soul, but Tony wasn't laughing. He remembered that Ziva had said something like that before the ARES mission in Quebec and with the chance now that he wouldn't see her alive again, the memory was just too painful.

Sure enough, they made good time, arriving a block away and parking underneath a tree. With the exception of a few street lights, the entire road was paved with darkness. They had changed into black while at the airstrip and were now strapping on black flak jackets. Tony had thought of something to say about the choice of dark apparel, something that went along the lines of Batman as the Dark Knight, but he wasn't in the mood to voice it. The helmets went on next, followed by night-vision goggles. Jenny's plan was to kill the power once they entered the building, an order she gave to Tariq, so that they would not only have the advantage of surprise, but also of being the only ones able to see. They retrieved the weapons last, as well as the infrared technology, locked the car and moved swiftly towards the building.

The warehouse was surrounded by grassy fields, with a plain behind it but a steep hill to its direct left. They exploited the mound to view into the place, using the infrared heat-sensing cameras to determine how many insurgents were in there, which were armed and where Ziva was likely to be. It was not, by any means, a large warehouse and Jenny believed that they could move through it quickly.

"I have got a count of eight insurgents with weapons and two possibly without," Tariq told her. "I think I may have found Ziva." He showed the view on the camera to Jenny and Tony rushed forward, almost bowling Tariq over, to have a look. They could see the red form of a person lying down in a small room. And that person was not moving.

"She's probably asleep," Ben told him when his face fell. "It's two in the morning."

"I wanna go in now," he told Jenny.

Jenny looked over to Ben, who nodded, wordlessly expressing his agreement with her decision. "Jimmy, you stay directly next to me and follow my every lead."

"Okay," Palmer replied with a great deal of anxiety.

"We'll be okay," Ben said brightly in an obvious attempt to encourage the younger man. Surprisingly, it worked, despite its lack of subtlety.

Jenny then looked to the Mossad, CIA and NCIS agents. "You three are going in first. I will assume you're all familiar with standard procedure on this."

"You've worked with us before," Ben told Jenny.

"Alright, let's go," Jenny announced.

They moved swiftly over the hill, approching the building via a side entrance. The door was locked with a simple padlock that took Ben all of three seconds to pick. Tariq entered the building first and immediately went for the switchbox, bashing into it as subtly as possible with the butt of his submachine gun. Finally, the reaction from the enemy terrorists came when the lights went out. They scrambled for their weapons, shouting at each other in Arabic and spewing into the main centre of the storage facility. Tony and Ben immediately off-loaded an entire clip of their H&K MP5 submachine guns into the three terrorists that rushed towards them first. They dropped to the floor without getting a shot off. Tariq had snuck up a level and pulled his M14 out, sniping two more insurgents seconds later.

"Five down, five to go," Jenny muttered as she nodded to Palmer to follow her.

Out of nowhere, another man, holding an AK-47, appeared behind them. Palmer turned first and shot five rounds into the man's torso, as well as four more that missed. Jenny had to commend his quick reaction time as they pushed further away from the periphery of the warehouse.

Another man approached from the side, but Tariq saw him before he saw the group and shot him dead with a single bullet to the forehead. Smiling to himself, he started to stand up from his position on the floor (where he was sniping from) until he saw another man, carrying at least an assault rifle, stalk the right side of the building. And he knew exactly who that man was. He moved across the upper level of the warehouse swiftly and silently, and took the stairs even quieter, as he was trained to do with the CIA and the Marines Force Recon team. The man, he noticed, was about to enter the closet where they suspected Ziva was being held. He dropped his MP5 from his hands, letting it hang by his side, and removed his Beretta from its holster.

"If you move, Khalid, I will kill you," Tariq whispered as he held the tip of the gun to the back of the man's head.

Smiling and moving quickly, Salim dodged the weapon as it shot. He elbowed Tariq in the head and turned around quickly to face in. Tariq had taken two steps back, his nose bloody and his brains scrambled a little. Salim threw the next punch, but it was one that Tariq caught in both hands. He yanked Salim towards him, using his left hand to hook Salim across the face and then kneeing him in the stomach. Tariq then brought his right elbow down on Salim's back. Winded, the man dropped to the floor and Tariq chose that moment to handcuff him, then knock him unconscious with the butt of his rifle.

The others, meanwhile, had shot and killed the remaining two terrorists. Tariq heard the gunfire rage as his close combat battle heated up with Salim. Now that all insurgent men were either dead or captured, they gathered in the centre of the warehouse.

"Over here," Tariq called out to them, edging towards the locked door that Salim had been going for.

"Nice work," Ben commented, seeing Salim's motionless form on the ground.

"Quickly," Tariq told them as he ushered them to the door. "Unlock it."

Ben rushed forward, with Tony directly behind him, and picked the lock faster than he had done so earlier. He pushed the door open to reveal a seemingly unconscious Ziva on the floor. Tony pushed past Ben and knelt beside her, pulling her head into his arms and whispering with apprehension. "Ziva... Ziva." He pushed bloody strands of hair out of her eyes.

The others were standing in the doorway, still and unsure of what to do. Palmer reacted first, moving into the room and kneeling next to Tony, hoping to get a glimpse and an idea of her injuries.

Ziva's eyes fluttered open softly and drowsily. "Tony...," she whispered, her voice raspy, the severity of her injuries and dehydration evident. Ben and Tariq found themselves impressed, as well as overjoyed, that she had survived that long.

"Tony..." Ziva whispered again with more urgency. He shushed her softly as Palmer looked over her body. There were so many injuries that he didn't know where to begin.

She went to speak, but before she could get his name out again, darkness engulfed her and she gave in to the timeless ravine of night. Tony tried to stir her, speaking, almost shouting, her name anxiously, but she couldn't be roused. She did not wake.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Ziva has been found! Yay, the chapter you've all been waiting for. Now review. I'm not gonna say anymore coz it's past 1am in the morning here and I want to sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

"Tony, let me in," Palmer begged desperately. "I need to see her."

Slowly, Tony nodded and lay Ziva down on the ground. "She... she just passed out," he stuttered, bewildered.

Palmer reached over her with his flashlight and shone it in each of her eyes. "Left pupil's blown."

"That sounds bad," Tony commented nervously.

Ben looked urgently at Jenny, who replied by removing her cell phone from her pocket.

"Where can we land a chopper around here?" Jenny asked to the space between Tariq and Ben.

"The field at the rear of this warehouse," Tariq answered immediately.

"You're getting us a chopper?" Ben questioned incredulously.

"MEDEVAC from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Gulf of Aden," she replied anxiously, then waited for her call to be answered.

"What about Camp Le Monier in Djibouti?" Tony suggested. "It's closer."

"They don't have trauma facilities," Jenny said quickly as she waited. "We'll get her on to the Teddy Roosevelt."

"That's a good idea," Palmer added, moving around Ziva's unconscious form to her right side, opposite Tony.

"What can you do?" Tony asked his close friend apprehensively.

"Judging by the trauma, it's probably a severe traumatic brain injury."

"Really?"

"Multiple intracranial haemorrhages, maybe a depressed skull fracture," Palmer told him earnestly.

"Maybe?!" Tony ejected.

"I don't know," Palmer retorted, clearly under pressure. "I can't see these things without a CT or MRI."

"Is that the most likely diagnosis? And the most serious?" Jenny asked.

"I need the Ambu bag," Palmer shouted at them.

"Palmer?!" Jenny shouted at him while Ben dove through the first aid kit and retrieved the bag valve mask, passing it Tony.

Leaving the NCIS agent sitting opposite him to hyperventilate Ziva, Palmer quickly examined the rest of her body looking for other injuries. "A lot of these are superficial," he responded to Jenny. "But the trauma to her abdomen may be causing mass internal bleeding."

"That doesn't sound good," Tony commented for a second time.

"Her level of consciousness leads me to believe that it's a head injury," Palmer continued. "When will the chopper be here?"

"ETA of one hour, at least," Jenny replied. "You have to do what you can until they get here."

Palmer took in a deep breath and nodded.

"She just dropped out of it again," Tony told them urgently.

"What do you need to do?" Ben asked Palmer quickly and forcefully.

"A craniotomy," Palmer answered, perplexed.

"Then do it," Ben advised him in a harsher than normal tone.

Palmer looked at him, bewildered, and shook his head slightly. "I can't go drilling into her brain if I don't even know that's the cause or where to drill. And I don't have a high-powered neurosurgical drill on hand. We need to get her into surgery."

"Didn't you hear?!" Jenny ejected, finally losing the cool that she was trying hard to hold on to. "The Seahawk won't be here for another forty-five minutes. You need to do everything you can."

"What can I do here, but?"

"Is it a traumatic brain injury?"

"Probably."

"Raised intracranial pressure?" Jenny questioned, and, in turn, received questioning looks from Tony, Ben and Tariq who were suspicious as to the source of her apparent profound knowledge of medicine.

"More than likely," Palmer replied, not questioning her. "There are bruises all over her face. I don't know where to start!"

"Are you sure?"

Palmer took a breath and looked closer over Ziva's head more closely. She was still dropping in and out of light consciousness and Palmer could tell that it was getting more serious with every minute. That also told him that he'd be looking for a more recent, serious injury, else she wouldn't still be alive. "Wait a sec," Palmer muttered. "There's a lesion that looks recent here."

"Serious?" Tony asked.

"I can't see what's going on under the skin," Palmer told him as Ziva dropped out of consciousness again.

"She's not breathing," Tony told them quickly as he lowered his ear to her mouth. Quickly, he replaced the Ambu bag over her mouth and recommenced the hyperventilation. Ben rushed forward and began with the chest compressions while Jenny yelled at Palmer again.

"She's not getting oxygen to her brain!" Jenny shouted in the young medical student's direction. Angry, she ripped out her cell phone again.

"Who are you calling?" Palmer asked.

"Ducky," she replied simply and then turned the phone on to speaker.

"Hello," came the voice on the other end of the line.

"Dr Mallard, we need your help," Jenny told him quickly.

"Jenny? Is that you? Jethro told me that you were working with Tony and Jimmy. How are-"

Jenny cut him off. "Not now, Ducky. We've found Ziva-"

"How is she?" came a different voice through the cell phone's receiver.

"Not now, Jethro. She's unconscious and stopped breathing. Your assistant believes it to be an intracranial haemorrhage."

"Well that can be very serious. Have you got medical help on the way?"

"A MEDEVAC from the TR is on its way with a trauma surgeon on board, but it'll probably be forty minutes."

"She doesn't have forty minutes," Ducky commented and Palmer nodded in agreement. "Mr Palmer, you will need to reduce the intracranial pressure."

"How?!" Palmer shot out.

"Burr holes," Ducky answered. "He needs a drill."

"We don't have a drill," Palmer told him. "And I don't know where to drill into. And what happens if I go too far?"

"Look, Jimmy," Jenny said aggressively as she stepped forward. "You do this and she might die, or you don't do this and she will die. The choice is yours."

All eyes were on Palmer as silence ensued.

"I have found a drill," Tariq announced, walking into the room and cutting through the silence. Nobody had even noticed him leave. He immediately handed it to Jenny, who then passed it to Palmer.

"The choice is yours," Jenny repeated.

Palmer was silent for a few seconds then snapped his head up. "Let's go. Time is of the essence here. I need alcohol wipes and the smallest drill bit."

Ben was the first to respond, letting Tariq take over on the compressions, digging through the first aid kit on the floor to help Palmer out. He ripped the alcohol wipes form their packet and passed a couple to Palmer, who cleaned the drill bit.

"You're going to need to go faster," Ducky told them. "She's already been down for two minutes."

It was actually closer to three minutes and Palmer completed cleaning the drill as Ben wiped clean Ziva's forehead. Palmer edged forward and knelt behind Ziva's head.

"Stop," he told Tariq, who immediately ceased compressions.

Palmer moved the drill into position and Tony shuddered obviously.

"Don't!" Palmer yelled at him. "I'm the one drilling into her head and you're kneeling there making faces."

"Tony, maybe you should come over here," Jenny suggested.

"No. I'm staying here. I'm okay. Continue."

"As soon as you start drilling, you will feel resistance," Ducky told him. "But as soon as you feel fragility, you need to pull back immediately."

"Where first?"

"Above the temporal bone on the side to the dilated pupil," Ducky answered.

Drawing in a breath, Palmer knew that it was now or never. He powered up the drill and pressed it to her temple, boring through the skin, and skull, slowly. There was a small amount of blood and he passed through the skin, but he knew it belonged only to the superficial capillaries that he severed. He felt resistance as he moved through the very thin bone, unbearably slowly, and then, all of a sudden, the hole filled with a lot more blood.

Palmer immediately pulled the drill out and Jenny passed him the gauze pad to press to the new wound. "It worked," he muttered quietly with a smile, before voicing it a little louder. "It worked."

"Look," Ben said, nodding in the direction of Ziva. "She's opening her eyes."

And sure enough, her eyes were fluttering open slowly.

"Hey there," Tony said to her, grinning from ear to here as he looked her square in the eyes. "Welcome back."

"Chopper's here early," Jenny announced needlessly. They could all hear it. Ben and Jenny ran out through the building's rear exit to greet the naval personnel.

"Where to ma'am?" a corpsman directed at Jenny.

"This way," Jenny answered, showing them in the direction of the door they'd exited through.

They walked straight into the tight closet where Ziva's semi-conscious and semi-motionless form was still lying on the cold, hard floor.

"Are you the medical examiner's assistant?" the man that appeared to be in charge asked.

Palmer just nodded in response, after coming down from his adrenaline high.

"I'm Captain Ericson," he told them as he knelt beside Ziva. "Burr holes?" he asked, looking at Palmer.

Again, Palmer nodded. "One."

"Well it looks like it did the trick. We'll finish the craniotomy when we get back on the TR and load her up with antibiotics as a precaution." As he spoke, the corpsmen were sliding a spinal board under Ziva's back and locking her neck into a brace.

"I should think so," Jenny put in. "These are definitely primitive conditions."

"Oh, I agree," Ericson told her and then turned back to Palmer. "You did well, kid."

"T-thank you," Palmer stuttered out.

"Let's go," Ericson told his team.

"How many of us can you get on there?" Jenny asked.

"All of you, but it'll be a little tight."

"Let's go," Jenny mimicked to her team.

"Nice one," Ben said to Palmer, patting him on the back as they followed the medical team out of the building towards the Seahawk.

"Yeah, you saved her life, Jimmy," Tony told him.

Jimmy just grinned widely. Tariq threw the unconscious form of Salim Khalid in the back of the chopper and hopped in afterwards. The rest of his cohorts let the medical team load Ziva up before following. It was a bumpy ride to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, but Ziva's condition was stable for most of the trip, with only a few downs that Captain Ericson fixed up quickly. Tony was hovering over them the whole time, even when the captain asked him to step back so they could work. Jenny ended up pulling him back a few times.

There was another medical team waiting when they landed on the well-lit flight deck. They unloaded Ziva immediately and then followed her off the craft. Jenny and the others brought up the rear, with Tony, of course, leading the pack. When Tariq pulled Salim off the chopper, another corpsman approached him.

"Do you need another gurney, sir?" he asked quickly.

"That will not be necessary," Tariq answered loudly over the roar of an F-18 engine. "I will see to him. He is a detainee." The lieutenant looked at him suspiciously, so Tariq clarified his disposition. "Terrorism charges." And the man left him alone with no further questions.

"Let's get her to surgery," Ericson yelled to his team, leaving Jenny, Ben, Palmer and Tony, who desperately wanted to follow but couldn't, lost on the flight deck until they were greeted by a public affairs ensign.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thanks for the great response on the last chapter. I guess it's because they found Ziva. Anyway, coming up next- the much anticipated reunion of Jenny and Gibbs, and Tony learns more about Tariq's past. Please review.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

The team was left waiting outside the carrier's infirmary by its public affairs ensign. It had been ninety minutes since they took Ziva away and nobody had told them anything. Jenny, Ben and Palmer were seated in the conference room turned makeshift waiting room nearby, Tariq was standing by the vending machine and Tony was crouched on the floor by the door with his head in his hands. He hadn't moved in some time and Jenny was convinced that he'd fallen asleep—until she heard the shallow breaths emanating out from him. She had to admit that she'd never seen a man as distraught as he.

"Are you okay?" Jenny asked after a while.

Immediately, Tony looked up and jumped. "Fine. I hate waiting."

Tariq looked over at him sympathetically, an expression that didn't go unnoticed by Tony. He was drawn back to their earlier conversation in Mogadishu and then the conversation with Ben in the cellar in Asmara.

"Excuse me," Tony said unexpectedly. He stood up and walked out of the room, attracting odd looks from the friends he left behind. As soon as he was in the hallway, he yanked out his cell phone and dialled the seventh number on his speed dial.

"Oh my God, Tony!" came Abby's strangled cry through the speaker. "How's Ziva?!"

"Still in surgery," Tony replied. "We haven't heard anything yet, but I promise to call you when I do."

"So why are you calling me now?"

Tony drew in a breath before answering. "I need information on someone."

"Well, I'll need a name or, at the very least, a picture," Abby told him. "Have you got either of those for me?"

"I can do both," Tony said as he leant around the doorframe inconspicuously and snapped a quick shot of Tariq on his cell phone, sending it to Abby. "You get the pic?"

There was no answer for a few seconds then—"Got it."

"His name is Tariq Bustani. He's of Egyptian birth and works for the CIA."

"You want me to hack the CIA?"

"No, I want you to find out about his life before the CIA. He was studying at NYU at the time."

"At what time?"

"When he was contracted by the CIA. Look, and see what you can find out about a Mossad Officer Ben-Gurion Moshe and his sister, Rachel." By this stage, Tony was whispering lightly. He was sure that he was out of the earshot of the others in the conference room, but he desperately wanted to avoid a confrontation with the men with guns and a deadly aim when they discovered his snooping.

"Okay, this isn't too obscure," Abby muttered.

"Just do it, okay, Abby," Tony told her tiredly, before hanging up abruptly. In all honesty, he was exhausted. He'd been exhausted since the night he'd killed Rivkin and he wouldn't sleep well again until he knew that Ziva would be alright. He thought back to when Gibbs was in the hospital, following their encounter with a Turkish fishing ship. Ziva didn't take that well. Not only could he see her as the stronghold that everybody else could, he also saw the defenceless layers of vulnerability under her skin. They grew close when Gibbs left; one of the few things good things to have come out of it all. The strength of the relationship they'd built had been destroyed the night she'd walked into her apartment and found him, alive, and her lover next to him, barely alive. And now he would do anything to restore it.

"DiNozzo," he heard a familiar voice say from behind him.

Immediately, Tony spun around and stared back at his boss. "Uh, hi ya, boss."

Gibbs just smirked and took a step forward, stopping directly in front of him. Tony barely had time to react as the older man's hand collided with the back of his head.

"Haven't had that in a while," Tony murmured. "For running off to save Ziva, I guess."

"No," Gibbs replied simply. He stepped closer to Tony and whispered in his ear. "For not coming to me when you found out." And then he stepped back. Gibbs was about to speak again when a voice from behind him interrupted.

"Hello Jethro."

It was a voice that he knew well. He didn't even need to turn when he addressed her. "Hello Jen."

"How long has it been? Nine years?"

"Ten," Gibbs said, finally turning around to face her. He gazed at her, his eyes descending from hers down over her body. "You're looking well. Italy obviously suited you."

"When you're done with the elevator eyes," Jenny commented.

"I thought you'd have a cushy desk job in Washington," Gibbs retorted. "But you wouldn't get the same tan."

"No, I can see that," Jenny shot back with more fire. "And perhaps there was something keeping me away from Washington."

"Really? Well, do you wanna tell me why you hijacked my agent?" Gibbs ejected as he changed the subject abruptly.

Tony, who was still standing beside Gibbs, was eternally grateful when his satellite cell phone rang again. He didn't even bother to excuse himself—he doubted if either of them still noticed that he was there.

"I am going to worship the ground you walk on for pulling me out of the middle of that, Abby," Tony smiled into the phone.

"Oooh, what happened?"

"Train wreck. I wanted to look away but I couldn't. You got anything for me?"

"Only exactly what you were looking for," Abby returned.

Meanwhile, the conversation between Jenny and Gibbs seemed to be heating up.

"I didn't think that I needed your permission to undertake an operation within my own jurisdiction," Jenny expelled angrily.

"No, but he does." Gibbs was furiously jabbing his finger in Tony's direction.

"Then maybe you should take it up with DiNozzo."

"Why the hell didn't you invite me in on this, Jen?" Gibbs asked in a softer voice.

"And what would you have told Vance? You're team leader for God's sake! You didn't need to know."

"I didn't need to know. Why did you feel the need to keep this whole thing a secret from me for as long as possible?"

"Because that's exactly what this rescue mission was. It wasn't scripted. It wasn't sanctioned. But it was something that I needed to do."

Gibbs just glared back at her in response.

Jenny sighed and stepped closer to him. "The best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone. The second best? Tell one other person, if you must. There is no third best."

"You're quoting my rules back to me now, Jenny?"

"I learnt from the best."

"Yeah, well, my first rule supersedes the fourth."

Jenny laughed loudly and mockingly. "Don't screw your partner-"

"Don't screw over your partner," Gibbs cut in.

Angrily and suddenly, Jenny shoved him against the wall, her right forearm pressed across his throat. "I wasn't aware that we still worked together, Jethro. And for future reference, this is my turf and I make the rules." With that, she let him go.

Not a moment later—just in time, it would seem—a slightly irritated cough interrupted them. "Excuse me."

Jenny and Gibbs turned simultaneously to see Captain Ericson out of surgery but still in his scrubs.

"Tony," Jenny called out down the hall.

He came immediately and walked straight towards the doctor, anxiety strangling his voice. "Is she okay?"

"She is doing well," Ericson told him, addressing the congregation of Jenny, Gibbs and the other three who had joined them, including the recently arrived Ducky. "We were able to successfully complete Mr Palmer's craniotomy and relieve the pressure on her brain. Most of her other injuries appear to be minor; a few broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a lot of bruising, minor burns and superficial wounds."

"Anything else?" Gibbs asked.

"We were concerned by some internal bleeding in her abdominal cavity, mainly stemming from her liver and pancreas, but we repaired what we could find, and she should be just fine."

"Can I see her?" Tony asked anxiously.

"Of course," Ericson said, nodding to a corpsman to lead the NCIS agent inside. Tony followed the man and left the others waiting back in the corridor. They agreed that they would wait until she had woken up to see her.

"Is she awake?" Tony asked Ericson, who was trailing behind him.

"Not yet, but that's not uncommon with this level of brain trauma. We expect that she'll wake up sometime tomorrow morning."

Tony nodded and followed the corpsman around a curtain, into the room Ziva was situated in. It took him a moment to take in the surroundings. A heart monitor, intubation tube, ventilator—it was a little much at first, but when he was brought a chair so that he could sit by her, he pushed all dark thoughts away and took the offering of seating. Now closer to her than he had been in a long time, he grasped her bruised and wounded hand in his own and held onto it tightly but tenderly, vowing not to let go until she woke.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Sorry for updating last night. I was too tired to finish the chapter, but here it is. I'm not sure when the next one will be up because I have final exams this week. Please review.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

His eyes opened slowly and with difficulty, almost as if McGee had gotten him back by gluing his eyelids together, as his lungs welcomed the fresh morning air from the aircraft carrier's air conditioning system. He lifted his head from the soft blankets on the hospital bed and looked up blearily, confusedly, at the face of the person he felt peering down on him.

"You're awake," Tony announced happily.

Ziva beamed back at him.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he ejected.

"You looked like you needed to sleep," she replied. She looked down a little. "You can give me my hand back."

"Oh," Tony mumbled, as he hastily let go of her sweating palm.

An awkward silence ensued.

"So, you, um, feeling better?" Tony asked in an attempt to strike up a conversation. And it failed.

"When did you get here?" Ziva asked quickly.

Tony looked up at her, perplexed. "Uh...what?"

"When did you get here?" she repeated slowly.

"When you came in," Tony told her exasperatedly. "We found you last night in that warehouse and got a Seahawk back here."

"A chopper?!"

"Ah, you're awake, Officer David," Captain Ericson stated cheerfully as he entered the room. "I'm Captain Ericson. I've been treating you. How are you feeling?" He leant over her and flashed a light in each eye quickly. "Pupils are good. Equal and reacting to light."

"We were on a chopper?" Ziva asked again.

"She's having a little trouble remembering what happened last night," Tony told the doctor.

"A little retrograde amnesia is completely normal. Do you remember what happened to you?"

"I was captured..." she said slowly and a little hazily.

"Do you remember where?"

Ziva was silent for a moment, before a memory came back hastily. "Somalia. Where am I now?"

"The USS Theodore Roosevelt," Ericson answered. "Friends of yours, including this young man who has yet to leave your side, rescued you last night from warehouse in Mawassa."

"Eritrea?" ZIva questioned loudly and wildly.

"Don't worry about it now," Ericson told her with a practised level of calm, pushing her slowly and gently back on to the bed. "Do you remember anything about your capture?"

The same hazy look washed over Ziva, and Ericson was concerned about getting her worked up, so he interrupted her attempts to recall what had happened. "That's okay. It's all perfectly normal, Ziva. You had a serious brain injury when we picked you up last night, in addition to two broken ribs, cuts and bruises. We are still a little concerned about the damage done to your maxilla and zygoma—the bones here on your face-" and he pointed them out, "-but we will need to consult a plastic surgeon to see if you need further surgery. That's something we don't have on this ship. Do you have any questions now?"

Ziva just shook her head, slightly bewildered. She looked to Tony for answers to as the doctor left.

"It's okay, Ziva," he said compassionately, as he subconsciously grabbed her hand again and held it in both of his. This time, she didn't ask him to let go.

"They were asking questions... about NCIS... and Mossad. I didn't tell them anything..." she stuttered out quickly. Bolting upright, she cried out, "I swear, I didn't say anything to them! I didn't..."

Tony rushed closer to her side soothingly, shushing her and letting one of his hands trail up and down her forearm lightly.

"I didn't..."

"I know," Tony told her, shushing at the same time. "I know."

He leaned in close to her, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting an arm around her waist. Slowly, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers, softly and lightly, all the while aware of her injuries. "I know."

Jenny, standing in the doorway just a few metres away, watched the entire exchange without saying a word. Instead of choosing to enter, and disconcert her recently awakened friend just a little bit more, she turned around silently and walked back to the conference room. She noticed Gibbs sitting alone at the table in the centre of the room, with a mug of steaming coffee in his palms.

He looked up at her the moment she walked in, as though he could sense her presence even with his back turned.

"Where's everybody else?" Jenny asked as she took a seat across from him.

"Breakfast. You should go and have something, Jen. You look like you haven't eaten in days."

"I'm not hungry," she told him, and they sat there in silence for a few minutes while he finished his coffee.

"Are you planning to tell me exactly what's going on here?" Gibbs shot out.

Jenny sighed. "What do you wanna know?"

"Everything."

"That's a bit vague, Jethro-"

He cut her off. "Everything you know about this operation, Jen."

She glared back at him. "It isn't much."

"Your friends from the CIA and Mossad?"

"We aren't the only agency with a stake in this. The CIA gave me everything I needed to find Ziva."

"Why?"

"Because now they want myself and Tariq to complete the mission Ziva started, to find this terrorist training camp."

"And this Ben-Gurion Moshe?"

"And we need his help to do it," Jenny finished.

"Mossad's help?"

"No, Ben's help. If I wanted Mossad's help, then I would've seen Amit Hadar. Ah, you know him, too," she commented, seeing the look on his face.

"We've met."

"I've had the displeasure of working with him on several occasions. I last saw him in Mogadishu. Mr Palmer and I left him in an abandoned lot in the middle of nowhere."

Gibbs smiled at her.

"You can ask Ben about him," Jenny continued. "Hadar wants nothing more than to close this case before we can."

"Why?"

"He has an agenda."

"Which involves..."

"Getting back on Director David's good side. It is Hadar's fault that Ziva was caught, and I get the feeling that he's not all that pleased. It isn't the first time that Hadar screwed up when heading a mission and got an officer killed."

"What happened the last time?"

Jenny looked up at him quickly and suspiciously. She had never intended to reveal that story, even though it had come up a few times on their journey. Their business was always conducted in secret and their history was always intended to remain equally as secret. "I had worked with the team only a few years prior."

"That definitely wasn't an answer."

She sighed again. He wasn't likely to share the story over drinks with anyone, and he wasn't about to let up, so she yielded. "When Ziva and I were working together in Romania, we were running point with three other Mossad operatives. The mission was a big thing for them—tracking down a Nazi war criminal with ties to a Bosnian terrorist group. Ben was one of them, along with Mossad Officer Rachel Moshe, his sister and Ziva's childhood friend. They were very close."

"Were?" Gibbs asked unnecessarily. He already knew the answer by her tone, and so he asked a different question. "Who was the third?"

"Ari," Jenny answered simply.

He didn't question it. He just nodded as she continued.

"I worked with Ziva, Ben and Rachel a few times after that, and Ziva saved my life in Cairo seven years ago."

"So you were returning the favour now?"

"In a manner," Jenny replied with a twinkling smile.

"And Hadar fits into to this how?"

Jenny's smile faded. She drew in a breath before continuing. "About three years later, we were all working together again, tracking down an Al Qaeda subset near Alexandria. I was located in Bahrain at the time, Ziva was in Tel Aviv after returning from a six-month stint in the UK, and Ben and Rachel were on the ground in Egypt. Hadar was in charge of the operation. Rachel's cover was as an archaeologist interested in more than just ancient artefacts, if you catch my drift. But she was compromised. Severely.

"Ziva and I flew separately to Cairo and met up with Ben but we were too late. A group of tourists found her body floating upside down in the Nile two days later. Rachel's fiancé was studying at NYU at the time and flew out the moment he heard she was missing. You've met him. Tariq Bustani."

"Tariq was engaged to Ben's dead sister and Ziva's dead best friend?" Gibbs asked bluntly.

"I'm glad to see that you haven't mellowed much since we parted," Jenny commented, equally as rudely, before continuing. "I was recalled to Bahrain, Ben was recalled to Tel Aviv and Ziva was sent to Washington, leaving Tariq alone in Cairo. He singlehandedly tracked down the entire cell we were pitted against and slaughtered every single member."

"And now he's CIA."

"And now he's CIA," Jenny reinforced. "He was in the final year of his Engineering degree. They let him finish and then offered him a job in exchange for bringing his family to America, paying for his teenage brother's Connecticut boarding school tuition followed by a college of his choice, and giving his parents good jobs with the State Department as translators."

"He must be worth a lot to them," Gibbs commented.

"Most definitely. He can fit in with any crowd from Morocco to Pakistan. I'm willing to bet that he can get contacts in any and every country. He's worth more to them than a dozen of their best agents."

Gibbs nodded, and then remembered something Jenny mentioned earlier. "Ziva was sent to Washington."

Jenny hesitated, knowing this story would come in conversation eventually. "To deal with her brother. I don't know much about it."

"How about how she came to work for NCIS?"

"You don't know?"

"Morrow organised for her to be on my team to improve relations with our allies in the Middle East."

"That is what I told him when I set up the position for Rachel."

Gibbs glared at her.

"What? We needed to improve relations with our allies in the Middle East and Rachel was a damn good officer. And she was an Israeli Mossad Officer engaged to an Egyptian engineer. At least it would be easier for them if they both lived in the States."

"How did Ziva get the position? She ask you for it?"

"No," Jenny replied confusedly. "Why would you ask? I offered the position to her after what happened with Ari. She took it without a second's hesitation."

"I am sure she did."

"What is this about, Jethro?"

"It's nothing," he said, shaking his head. "Have you been in Naples since then?"

"Not exactly, but I can't tell you where."

Gibbs chuckled lightly. "I always knew that you were made for this type of thing, Jen."

"Yeah, well, I'm getting too old for this type of thing, Jethro," Jenny said in return. "Once this operation is over, I think I'm going to apply for a position back in Washington."

"Nothing keeping you away now?"

"Perhaps it's time."

"Time to get over someone?" Gibbs questioned lightly.

"Time to face them again," Jenny told him with a small smile. "Ten years is a long time."

Gibbs stood up abruptly and started towards the door. "Maybe not long enough."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I'm very sorry for the long delay. I've had two final exams and then when they were over, work had me jumping through hoops. But with the start of the new week, I will have much more time for writing, so I'll finally be able to update Cryptocracy. YAY!!! Anyway, please review.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen**

The flag end of the ship was deserted when he arrived, leaning against the railing that stood between him and a twenty-foot drop into a churning blender that reminded him of the innards of an anaconda. His sailor escort stood a little while off, and he got the sense that the nineteen year-old was a little afraid of heights anyway. He came outside to think alone, but it was not long before he felt a presence interrupting his reflection.

Turning around slowly, he greeted the man coming his way. "_sabāhu al-khaīr_."

"Morning, Tariq," Ben replied. He glided over the floor's extended platform to stand next to his friend and gazed in the same direction as he—over the horizon.

"We're going to need Hadar's intel for this," Ben commented without looking at Tariq. He knew the conversation would be heavy-handed. There was just too much history between them.

"I know," Tariq replied.

"Can you handle that?"

Tariq turned around and faced Ben, bringing the Israeli-American's gaze back to him. "Yes."

"Forgive me for not believing that."

"You are allowed to believe what you like," Tariq mumbled, looking down.

Ben stepped forward and grasped his friend's shoulder. "You are my _brother_, Tariq," he said slowly and compellingly. Once, they had almost been brothers-in-law, but they were, now, truly brothers. "Never mind the tragedy that plagues our past, you were, are and always will be my brother. But Ziva..."

"I know," Tariq finished. "Rarely do we get the chance for family."

"We should embrace it," Ben told him with a weak smile.

Tariq smiled back, just as weakly, and then changed the subject. "Your agency has an immense stake in this."

Ben nodded slowly. "He was a good man. All of us were upset by his assassination."

"And Director David seeks retribution for the act," Tariq added.

"So he should," Ben argued. "The man is a terrorist anyway."

"And at what cost?"

"Not his daughter's," Ben warned. "That was Hadar's fault. You know what that man is like. He's sloppy when he has to do things quickly. If he was any good at his job, he'd have pulled Michael out of the US before the situation grew dangerous."

"You blame Tony for what happened to Rivkin?"

"I blame myself!" Ben roared, stepping forward dangerously. The teenage sailor cowered away from them in fear, but Tariq did not take even a step back. He stood his ground.

"You should not blame yourself, Ben," Tariq told him in a low, calm voice. "You were not to know what would happen. You did not know that Michael could not do his job anymore."

"I was concerned," Ben told him. "I trusted Hadar with my concerns and why?! The man did nothing and I shouldn't have been surprised. Hadar is only interested in taking care of himself."

"I know that," Tariq spat back.

"But I guess we are prejudiced against him," Ben added with a change of attitude. "And we will need to work with him if we're to finish what Michael and Ziva started. We need to find Bernstein."

"And when we do?"

"He will be Mossad's problem," Ben told him. "Americans can take the camp."

"Agreed," said Tariq, finally embracing a wide smile. "We will take Jenny and Special Agent Gibbs and go back to Algeria to meet up with Casey. You should get into contact with Hadar."

"I will," Ben told him, and the pair walked back into the corridor, following their escort back to their makeshift home base near the carrier's infirmary.

---

Ziva David was aware of the signature sounds of a hospital around her—the beeping, the movement of the medical professionals. With her eyes still shut, she was aware of all of it, as well as Tony's presence near the doorway. She had asked him to leave after a while. Her memory was still fuzzy and one of the last things that she remembered was losing Michael. She no longer blamed him for what had happened, she had had time to mull over that fact after they left Tel Aviv, but she still blamed herself.

Blamed herself for ignoring Michael's desperate pleas for help, his drinking, his erratic behaviour; for not arriving home sooner or asking Hadar to pull him sooner; and most of all, for not letting Tony in far enough to help her. It was true, she hated the reliance on another human being, but he was her partner and it was in situations like this that they were supposed to work together. Not for a second did Ziva think that barring Tony from the situation for whatever reason—his safety, his career—would actually have dire consequences. But it did. And now she couldn't take it back.

"Ahem," a cough came from the door.

Ziva looked up at the interruption that had cut across her progressive thinking, expecting it to be Tony. But it wasn't. "Jenny? What are you doing here?"

Jenny smiled and sat down in the chair that Tony had occupied. "Did you think that Tony and Jimmy could find you by themselves?"

"Palmer is here too?"

"What did Tony tell you?"

"Not much," she muttered bashfully.

"Because you sent him away?"

"He was tired. He needed to rest," Ziva told her quickly.

"I'm not sure that he can," Jenny mumbled in a low voice.

Ziva looked away without answering. "How did you find me?"

"Well, this is a story to tell," Jenny said with a smile, and then launched into a long explanation that stemmed from finding out about her capture from Mossad, then calling Tariq and Tony, the meetings in Rome and Algiers, then Somalia and Eritrea. She ended with a final deep breath and a smile, which feel quickly when she asked the next question. "What do you remember?"

"You need to know, don't you?" Ziva asked, frustrated. "It's important."

"It's okay, Ziva," Jenny told her soothingly, grasping her right arm gently.

"I don't know," Ziva exclaimed. "I don't remember!"

"Relax," Jenny said, almost like an order. "Cam down, Ziva. You're not going to remember anything if you get worked up." Her voice softened as Ziva sank back into the bed. "Now, what _do_ you remember?"

Ziva nodded slowly and started talking, hesitantly and with difficulty. "I was asleep in my bunk on the ship about three days after we left the Port of Aden. The ship was waiting off the coast of Mogadishu. Three men attacked me in the middle of the night. I tried to fight back and I was winning but one more man came from behind me and hit me. I woke up tied to a chair. I do not know how long I was out for, but it was light when I woke up." She paused, hesitation evident in her expression.

"What did they ask you?"

"They just hit me the first day, maybe the second and third..." She shut her eyes as the memories came oozing back. "They asked me about what Mossad knew of Bernstein and the camp. And then NCIS and Abin Tabal. And then..." She paused and opened her eyes, looking directly at Jenny. "I don't know..."

"That's okay," Jenny told her softly and with a weak smile. "That's good."

"Are you going after them?"

"We are," Jenny told her. "You will have to stay here for at least another night before I can have you transferred elsewhere."

"Where to?"

"NCIS Naples or Rota with Tony," Jenny told her. "You can recover there. I'm still waiting for them to get back to me."

"Tony does not have to come," Ziva said.

"He is going with you. He is your partner and you need stop avoiding him. Is this still about Michael Rivkin?"

"You already know everything there is to know, Jenny," Ziva commented. "It would make sense that you know about that too."

"You have to stop dwelling on this one. What happened in Washington three weeks ago was tragic and terrible for many people. Things didn't go as you planned; as anyone planned."

"Things went as my father planned," Ziva remarked bitterly.

"That may be, but I'm sure he was the only one."

"Vance?"

Jenny bit her lip. "I don't know enough about him or his role in this to say anything."

Her Israeli friend turned away and scoffed. "Yes you do. We are prawns in this, Jenny. Vance and my father are moving the show."

Jenny burst out laughing while Ziva sat very confused.

"Did I say it wrong?"

"Very wrong. I think you meant we are _pawns_ and they are _running_ the show."

"You know what I mean," Ziva said irately. "What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't want you to worry about it. I am handling it."

"You and Tariq are going after the camp," Ziva stated plainly. "And Ben?"

It was Jenny's turn to hesitate. "It seems that there is some tension between Mossad and the American intelligence community. Neither side is willing to cooperate with the other."

"And yet you worked with Ben to find me."

"It's different."

"For me you were willing to break the rules?"

"I broke a lot of rules trying to find you, least of all collaborating with foreign agents."

Ziva simply nodded and didn't question it any further.

"Get some rest," Jenny told her. "Your memory will come if you give it time."

"Do I want it to?" Ziva asked her seriously. "Do I want to remember what happened?"

Jenny stood up her, bent over the bed and kissed her forehead softly. "Get some rest."

And Ziva knew. Her fears about her capture had been confirmed, but she would not admit it. As Jenny turned to leave, she spoke up. "You know, Rachel and I promised each other that we would not be captured alive. We both were. She didn't survive."

"But you did, Ziva," Jenny told her from the doorway, and then left.

"I don't know which of us is the luckier," Ziva murmured aloud to herself.

* * *

Author's Notes: Sorry about the long delay again. Work has been working me hard and I've been to tired to feel like writing. But today that changed and hopefully, I'll be able to update Cryptocracy soon too. Stay tuned and please review. More Tiva coming up next chapter.


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen**

Tony finally decided to eat something at around midday, as the ship's sailors were gathering at the mesa hall for lunch. With McGee and Palmer tagging along, he showed them the way through the overcrowded hallways and decks. He'd spent a long four months on a ship like this not too long ago and knew its outline like the back of his hand—or like another part of his anatomy that he knew really well. If he had to admit it under oath or pain of death, he didn't want to leave Ziva alone in her room in the infirmary. After all she'd been through, he told himself, she shouldn't be alone. But he knew, deep down, that that was not his main reason for wanting to stay by her side.

And so he scoffed his food down at Formula One speed, encouraging, or rather, ordering Palmer to mimic his actions, while McGee sat there, his appetite uninterested in the food before him. Palmer did not eat as quickly, so he left them both at the table five minutes after they arrived, telling them to find their own way back to the conference room they had set up shop in. He all but sprinted back to the infirmary, ignoring the looks of disdain and yells of displeasure as he bumped into people of all ranks and sizes, and dashed into his partner's room.

"Hey-" he began to say when he noticed something—an IV line, removed, and on the floor; sheets rolled back to the base of the bed; the hospital gown left forlorn on the linoleum. The bed was empty.

Tony dashed out of the room. "Where's Officer David?!"

"I'm sorry, Agent DiNozzo?" a young nurse asked him confusedly.

"Officer David. Where is she? She's not in her bed." He was doing his best to keep his anger at their incompetence at bay.

"I... I don't know, sir," she stuttered, anxiously looking from the empty bed to the space around her.

"Page her," Tony ordered, before taking off out of the infirmary. Honestly, he had no idea where she would be, but he had to find her. He told himself that if he did it once before, and against all odds too, he could do it again. He ran from their empty conference room—everybody was down at lunch—to the flight deck, the gym near the bottom of the ship, the ladies' quarters (without knocking) and finally the mess hall. He figured he'd leave it to last because if she was there, Gibbs would've spotted her and taken care of her. No sense searching a place if someone you trusted was already there and you had a thousand other places to look. But she wasn't in any of those areas. He looked down at his watch—she'd been missing for 23 minutes.

He walked down to the bottom of the ship, his mind lost deep in contemplation, when he heard soft humming. It was a Hebrew song that he was sure he'd heard before, not long after Gibbs' departure three years earlier when the team had gone through a rough patch. The song had made him smile. Following his ears just a few metres, he found himself at the flag end of the ship. And he found Ziva, sitting on the railing and wearing a female petty officer's uniform. He had no idea where she'd gotten it from.

"Ziva," he said, almost gasping as he stepped forward, just close enough to reach if she fell but far enough away that he wouldn't startle her. "What are you doing out here?"

"Thinking," she replied simply, letting her long hair flow over her face in the wind as she gazed over the horizon. "Just thinking."

"And you couldn't do that in your room?"

"It was too stuffy and smelt like a hospital. It is fresh out here. Nice."

Tony nodded and cautiously stepped closer.

"I don't think that I have felt a fresh breeze in a while," she then said, sorrowfully. "But then again, I don't think that I would know."

"You should come back inside," Tony told her softly.

"I like it out here," she told him, then threw her legs over the side so that she was facing in the opposite direction to him, and hanging over the flag end's railing.

"ZIVA!" he cried, rushing forward.

"Calm down, Tony. I am fine," she berated him with a juvenile smile. "Doesn't this remind you of a movie?"

Tony didn't answer her, so she stuck her arms out at ninety degree angles, and looked back at him. "How about now?"

"Ziva, get down," Tony told her.

"I'm flying, Tony," she said, laughing.

"I'm not joking, Ziva. Get down," he said again, very seriously and very forcefully. He stepped up and grabbed her by the waist, making sure she didn't fall.

"Fine," she said, giving in and spinning back around to face him.

He shook his head at her. "Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio were on the ship's bow, not the flag end."

"Do you want to try this on the bow of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Tony?" Ziva asked with a twinkling smile.

"Not really, no."

Ziva laughed and Tony just gazed at her beautiful face, shrouded by bruising and disfiguration. She noticed this and stopped laughing, shying away from his gaze.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she told him. "And I know that it looks hideous."

"You still look beautiful," Tony whispered to her, his face just inches from hers. But he immediately regretted it as she pulled away. Well, as far away as she could without falling. He was still gripping her hips.

They didn't say anything to each other for at least a minute, awkwardly looking away or at the water down below.

Finally, Tony spoke. "I have some things that I have to say to you, Ziva. I haven't been able to—you've been avoiding me—but I want to say them now."

She didn't offer any reply, but gazed into his green eyes intently.

"I am sorry for the way things turned out," he began. "I'm not saying that I'm sorry about having to kill Michael. I know what I had to do even if you won't believe it, but I am sorry that you lost someone important to you. I didn't want to kill him. I never wanted to do anything but protect you. From him, from your father, and I failed on both fronts. He was using you, Ziva, but regardless of that, he was still important to you. And in trying to keep you safe, I lost you. I lost your trust and your friendship and I will do anything—_anything_—to get it back. I'm not asking you to trust me again, I just want you to think about it."

He just looked at her when he finished his well-rehearsed speech. It was the speech that he'd planned since the plane took off from Tel Aviv. And it actually sounded a little different in his head. It was only missing one thing. Three one-syllable words.

She still didn't speak. Looking at him, her expression unreadable, she nodded slowly and got off the platform, pressing against his body as she did so until he had the sense to step back.

"Come on," he said. "I'll walk you back to your room. Hopefully, we can get off this ship soon."

Ziva didn't make any remark, but followed him back to the infirmary without any argument. In all honesty, she had loved hearing the words come from his mouth. She desperately wanted to go back to the way things were when she wasn't suspected of being a mole planted by Mossad and the team didn't have such great trust issues. She wanted to believe in their partnership again, but a part of her maintained the position that being part of the team will only lead to more heartache and they could never possibly return to same dynamic as before. It was broken, shattered into a million pieces, and all the superglue in the world could not bring them back together. And that part of her brain, the functioning, logical centre, was still the one making all of her decisions for her.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Thanks to everyone whose been reading and reviewing. I love you reviews. Coming up next- Salim Khalid (the terrorist who was holding Ziva) will be making his reappearance in a cell on the ship. Hehehe... and perhaps he can fill in some of the missing links about this case.

Please review.


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

Author's Notes: Okay, so I'm writing this at the beginning of the chapter to tell you all that Salim will not be in this chapter, but the next. I've had to split this chapter into two shorter ones, otherwise it would be longer and wouldn't be up today. Anyway, happy reading and please review.

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen**

Tony and Ziva didn't speak about their chat again for the rest of that day. He accompanied her back to her room and turned around as she changed back into the gown before getting back into bed. Tony brought the chair closer to her bed and spent the next hour giving her a blow-by-blow account of their rescue, and, even though she'd already heard it from Jenny, she listened intently and laughed along with him in a few parts. Jenny hadn't mentioned that Tony had used his cast as a balance for the submachine gun he had with him when they raided the warehouse and the earlier incident in Somalia where Tariq had to save him from the manager of the money laundering and weapons transporting company that Salim was using.

Ziva was smiling to herself as Tony's excessive arm movements and facial expressions conveyed to her a humorous side of the intensity of the gun battle at the warehouse in Eritrea. She had almost forgotten how easy talking to him was; how quickly conversation came between them.

McGee and Palmer, who shared a room in the living quarters and been hanging out together or with Ducky, and had generally been ignored by the others. They hadn't seen Ben or Tariq since breakfast that morning and had only seen Jenny and Gibbs at lunchtime in the mess hall. It was now close to dinnertime and they were bringing up food from the mess hall to the infirmary for Tony and Ziva.

McGee walked in and passed Tony his plate of food while Jimmy had Ziva's. They pulled two more chairs in from outside her room and sat down on the other side of her bed.

"Not eating, McGee?" Tony asked with a smile.

"I don't think my stomach wants me to," McGee replied, looking far sicker than Ziva did. She was scoffing down her meal excitedly.

"Did you eat lunch?" Ziva asked as she ate.

"Please don't talk with your mouth open," McGee replied shying away. He gulped and then ran out of the room.

Tony and Ziva burst out laughing and Jimmy joined in uncomfortably. McGee pushed past Ducky on his way out.

"Where is young Timothy going in such a hurry?" Ducky asked as he walked in with his plate of food and took McGee's chair.

"You know, I think I have a vomit bag around here somewhere," Ziva commented, looking around her bed and on the table next to her.

Ducky chuckled in response. "Have you seen Jethro? Or perhaps one of the other members of our makeshift spy syndicate?"

"Not since this morning," Tony replied. "I think they were planning on interrogating Salim Khalid tonight."

"Jenny told me that we should be flying out of here tomorrow," Jimmy put in. "Probably back to Italy, to her office in Naples."

"I believe that we are," Ducky told them. "Jethro spoke to Director Vance earlier and it would appear that we have a new case."

"Vance put us on this case?" Tony questioned.

"Well, he put Jethro on it. You, Anthony DiNozzo, are still injured."

"Hey, I rescued Ziva, didn't I?"

"And you and Mr Palmer are lucky to be alive," Ducky commented. Tony could sense something that could only be described as 'Ducky anger' building. "Running through North Africa with three out-of-control and off the radar spies? Raiding a warehouse with nearly ten armed gunmen inside? You two should certainly be counting your blessings and it's unthinkable that you would leave without speaking to myself or Jethro first."

"I apologise, Doctor Mallard," Jimmy told him quickly and earnestly.

"I'm not sorry," Tony then said. "Jimmy wanted to come to take care of me and I'm glad that he did. He saved Ziva's life. He had to come and so did I. We're not sorry for doing what we had to do."

Ducky opened his mouth to say something when McGee cut him off by walking into the room, clutching his stomach and groaning.

"Perhaps you should go back to your quarters and lie down," Ducky suggested to him. McGee nodded weakly. "Mr Palmer, why don't you escort Timothy back to his quarters, while I see if I can write him a script for scopolamine?"

"Feel better, my dear," Ducky said to Ziva on his way out.

"Yeah, I hope your memory improves," Jimmy told her as he followed the doctor, with an arm around McGee's slumping shoulders.

Ziva closed her eyes. Everyone was hoping for her memory to come back. And her memory was coming back, slowly, and then all of a sudden in quick flashes of pain and horror. She could see the hits coming her way, and with her hands tied behind her back, she was powerless to stop them. She could feel the clothes being ripped from her body, hear the jeers of her captor's companions, smell the reeking odour from his half naked body pressed against hers.

"_Are you okay, Ziva?"_

It was a kind voice that she heard in the distance, but it was too far away from her nightmare. Memories of pain and disgust were filling her mind again, but she would never let anyone else know. She felt as though she was dying all over again and almost wished for the light at the end of the tunnel to come.

"_Ziva, are you okay?"_

It was the same gentle voice again, more urgent and more pressing this time. But it was still far away, so far away. She felt a hand grasp her right forearm and she threw the attacker back with all her might, knowing that it wasn't much because her hands were still tied behind her back and she'd been starved for days. In the distance, she heard the sound of metal smashing against the floor and a loud thump. Cautiously, she opened her eyes slowly, expecting to see her assailant staring back at her. But he wasn't. She looked around and saw him on the floor. He wasn't going to attack her, she realised, but he was lying, motionless and bleeding from a head wound, below.


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen**

Gibbs was making his way down the dark and very dank corridor towards a staircase on his way to the brig near the base of the ship. When Tariq and Jenny explained the nature of their captured enemy combatant to the skipper, he gave them an empty cell and all the time and privacy they needed.

Jenny was waiting for him at the base of the stairs, her lips curled as she read through a report with her back to the cool wall. "'Bout time, Jethro. I thought you were right behind me."

"Sorry to disappoint, Jen," Gibbs replied, his lips curving into a wide smile.

"Where were you?"

They were now walking down the corridor towards the brig, their foot speed matched evenly.

"Doesn't matter," Gibbs replied quickly. They heard a loud grunt coming from the end of the corridor, then looked at each other simultaneously, and hastened their pace. "Tariq and Ben started without us?"

"I told them not to," Jenny answered as she spun around a bend and came face to face with the brig. Salim was tied to a chair in the centre of his cell with Tariq and Ben standing on either side of him, bent low and whispering in each ear. As soon as they saw Jenny and Gibbs enter Tariq took five large steps back, but Ben stood his ground.

Jenny just glared at them and then looked down at Salim's sweating and panting body. Physically, he didn't have a mark on him, and she wondered just what techniques they had employed to attempt the retrieval of information. But if Gibbs was thinking anything, it certainly did not show in his expression. He was reserved and hung back behind Jenny, assessing the situation. Jenny looked from Ben to Tariq, and then gestured in the direction of the exit with her head. They complied, silently, and followed Jenny and Gibbs back into the corridor, leaving Salim restrained in the chair.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" she demanded in an angry hiss as soon as they were clear. She grabbed them both by their arms and flung them in front of her. "What happened to violations of human rights? What happened to international law?"

"What happened to 'we need that information now'?" Ben mocked.

"Do not joke about this," she warned dangerously. "And Tariq, you work for the United States government. We are trying to remove these methods of interrogation from use by the CIA. You completely disregarded everything."

"Everything?" Ben put forward with a smile.

"The American constitution," Jenny suggested. "The Geneva Conventions. The Goddamn Magna Carta."

"I get the point," Tariq said with blasé sort of attitude.

"Hey, come on, Tariq," Ben said cheerfully. "There's been a change in policy. 'Yes we can'."

"I'm not joking," Jenny shot back. "Don't you realise that Ziva, one of your closest friends, was put through the exact same style of interrogation and may never recover. That Rachel-"

Tariq cut her off with a low, dangerous warning. "Do not talk about Rachel."

"How can you do this after all we've seen and been through?"

"That's exactly why," Ben told her. "Do you want another 9/11 on your hands? 'Cause they may very well be planning that."

Jenny scowled. "You think you'll get any information from a man who wants nothing more than to martyr himself for the cause? Abusing him won't get you any information, it'll get you nothing."

"And what do you propose?" Tariq asked suggestively.

"We talk to him," Jenny responded, then turned to her former partner. "Agent Gibbs will talk to him."

Gibbs looked up, unexpectedly, at the sound of his name. Although, in all truthfulness, he had expected that she would select him to interrogate Salim. After all, they had worked together many times before and she knew and trusted his interrogation methods, both to get the job done and to get it done right. Cautiously, he removed the file from her hands and walked back into the cell, pulling up a chair from the chamber's periphery and sitting in front of him.

"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," the greying man introduced with a smile. He'd have gone for a handshake too, but Salim was still bound with his arms behind his chair.

The dirty, still sweaty, man in front of him said nothing.

"Seems you have an interest in my agency, Khalid," Gibbs continued brazenly. "I can't quite figure out why. We investigate Navy crimes. What does that have to do with you?"

Salim said nothing.

"Perhaps you could enlighten me," Gibbs suggested.

Again, nothing.

Gibbs didn't seem concerned by this in the slightest. He looked down and started thumbing the file that Jenny had given him, containing all the information pertinent to the case—or at least the information he was cleared to receive. "You know anything about a Hazaiah Bernstein?" Gibbs asked without looking up. "His name is mentioned a few times in this."

"He prefers Fahim 'Uthman al-Khatani," Salim answered.

"Yeah, it says that here, too," Gibbs told him, still skimming over the file quickly. He was inwardly cheering. He had gotten Salim talking, even if the man revealed a useless piece of information that he knew the Americans already knew. It was a starting point and his plan was starting to work.

"You do not know him?" Salim asked with him.

"Name's not familiar to me," Gibbs replied earnestly. He was happy to start building the trust connection between them. He would use it to trick Salim later. "Can't say much for my colleagues."

"Mossad." It was a statement, not a question, and the first time that Salim really revealed something about himself and his goals.

"Says here that he assassinated an Ari Segev," Gibbs read off the file. "That sounds like an Israeli name. Don't know whose, though. Hazaiah Bernstein—that sounds like a Jewish name, too."

"You cannot help what family you are born into," Salim stated plainly.

"What family were you born into?" Gibbs asked in a conversational tone.

Salim smiled. "I was born in a town north of Gaza city. The room I shared with my four brothers was not larger than this cell."

"Big family," Gibbs said with empathy. Understanding, he knew, was key to getting Salim to open up about anything. "Must've been hard. That why you work for al-Khatani?"

"He chose me," Salim reinforced. "Were you not recruited into your Marine Corps in the same way?"

"I chose that," Gibbs answered truthfully, using the same words that Salim had. He was thumbing through the file again, trying to appear more intent on getting information from that then from Salim. He was trying to relieve the pressure and tension in the room, and, as he saw their captive relax in his chair, he knew it was working. "Well, you got quite the rap sheet working for al-Khatani. Nothing the Americans would ever get you on."

"Do you really expect me to comment on that?" Salim questioned, chuckling good-naturedly at the same time.

Gibbs responded with a similar light-hearted laugh. "No, I guess not."

"But here I am," Salim pointed out.

"Do you really expect those guys to let you go?" Gibbs questioned, again, reusing words that Salim had.

Salim laughed again in return. "I guess not."

"You had run-ins with Tariq Bustani and Ben-Gurion Moshe before?" Gibbs asked.

"Obviously."

"I suppose that was obvious," Gibbs replied. He got up from his chair and moved it back, then turned back to a confused Salim and addressed him. "I'll have dinner brought down for you and I will be back in the morning. Right now, I need to check up on my team." He walked forward and removed the shackles from Salim's hands and feet, and then walked out of the cell, locking it behind him.

Jenny, Ben and Tariq were waiting for him around the corner.

"Sounds like it went well," Jenny commented as the four of them took the stairs away from the brig.

"As much as I want to strangle him, he has information we need," Gibbs told her. He was about to speak again when the young public affairs officer that had been chaperoning them around the _Teddy Roosevelt _came bounding down the stairs.

"Sirs, ma'am, I have been looking for you," the Ensign said quickly and out of breath. "There has just been an incident involving your team in the infirmary."

Gibbs didn't need to be told twice. He took the stairs twice as fast as the Ensign had and raced to the infirmary, leaving Jenny, Tariq and Ben trailing much further behind. It seemed that he had borrowed a rule from Tony—never sit on the sidelines when your people need you.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** My apologies for the delay. My editor had exams this week and they've just finished. Coming up next chapter, which will be posted tomorrow, you find out what happened to Tony and an old and loved friend of ours makes a brief reappearance. Please review.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen**

Tony felt his head smack on the floor—or at least he thought that he did. His vision was swimming when he opened his eyes, but he wasn't quite where he expected to be. Feeling the floor below him, he sat up rapidly and looked around. He was still in the infirmary, but it was empty. Ziva's bed was uninhabited. His first thought was that she had taken off to get him help, but the equipment she had been hooked up to had also vanished.

"Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought," Tony muttered to himself.

"That doesn't seem too hard, DiNozzo," came a jubilant female voice from behind him.

Tony's eyebrows furrowed in surprise and shock. He knew that voice. Spinning around on his behind, he now sat facing the woman who'd interrupted his thoughts. And she was still wearing her NCIS jacket. "Oh great."

"What?"

"I'm dead, Kate."

"I certainly hope not," Kate replied earnestly. "It was just getting quiet around here."

Tony shut his eyes purposefully and then tore them open rapidly. She was still in front of him.

"What are you doing? I'm not going anywhere."

"Is this my subconscious again?"

"Probably," Kate replied before her expression changed from indifference to realisation. "Don't even think about it," she warned dangerously, pointing her finger in his direction.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tony mumbled with a wide smile. His smile soon faded and his expression became serious. "What are you doing here then? Obviously I did hit my head harder than I thought and now I'm dreaming. But why are _you_ here?"

"Oh, that's nice," Kate mocked. "Insult your hallucination."

"I'm not hallucinating! I'm not awake!"

"Whatever," Kate returned irately. "I can't believe that you can still get on my nerves when I'm dead."

"It's a skill like anything else."

"I don't want to know what other skills you have, DiNozzo," said Kate with some disdain. "But I'm not here to discuss that with you."

"Then I'll ask you again," Tony fired back. "Why are you here?!"

Kate sighed and walked over to Ziva's bed, sitting on the edge. "To warn you."

Tony, on the other hand, was now standing against the door frame, rubbing his head. When he heard her response, he dropped his arms and crossed them, his expression now very serious. "Warn me about?"

"Ziva."

"I don't need advice on Ziva," Tony replied incredulously.

"And not just her," Kate advised. "You and Gibbs are being kept out of the loop on this. There's a lot you don't know."

"Not my problem," Tony told her forcefully. "I came to find Ziva. I found her. End of story."

"It's not the end. Not for her. Ziva's involved in this too. And as long as she is, you are."

"I trust Ziva," Tony said, he thought, without reservation.

But Kate could sense reservations. "You want to believe that, but you know that you can't. Not now, not yet."

"You don't know anything about this, Kate," Tony shot back angrily.

"I do know, Tony. And I know you. You're going to do everything you can for her, regardless of the fact that you don't even know what she's up to. It nearly got you killed with Rivkin, and it will get you killed when it happens again."

"Ziva didn't know what was going on with Rivkin."

"Yes, she did," Kate answered. She almost looked apologetic to be telling him this. "And she knows what's really going on now. But she won't tell you."

"Then you tell me," Tony spat back at her. His head was aching and he was well and truly over the philosophical discussion about trust.

"I can't."

"Why the _hell_ not?!"

"Because I don't know. You don't know, Tony, ergo, I don't know."

"Then why are you here? To warn me not to trust Ziva?"

"Not at all. I am warning you to be careful. Your role, the American role, in all of this is elusive. But, Tony, when it comes down to it, she will place you and your safety above all else. You want to trust, but you don't, and you should. That is what I am telling you. The time _will_ come when you will be Tony and Ziva again."

"_Tony!"_ He could hear a voice in the distance. It must've been coming from another room, he told himself. Until he heard it again. _"Tony!"_

"Do you hear that?" Tony asked Kate.

She nodded. "Remember what I said, Tony. You need to let go of what happened with Rivkin. There can be nothing, no partnership, no relationship of any sort, without trust."

"_Tony!"_

It was almost like the world was swimming before him again. Kate's face was becoming more and more a distant memory. He couldn't even hear her voice anymore. Slowly, he shut his eyes.

"_Tony!"_ He could still hear the voice. Or, rather, voices. They were calling his name. Someone was roughly tugging at his shirt. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

---

"Welcome back, DiNozzo," Gibbs greeted, standing over him. His was the first face that Tony saw upon opening his eyes. He turned his head slightly to see that he was back on the infirmary floor again and a crowd had gathered around him. This time, he'd woken up with an aching head and a wetness dripping down the side of his face. However, he was slowly coming back to reality, and the world before him was becoming clearer.

"How do you feel, my boy?" Ducky asked from Gibbs' left. He leant forward and shone a light into each of Tony's eyes. "Probably just a concussion," Ducky concluded.

"You should be a little more careful, DiNozzo," Gibbs told him.

"Is Ziva okay?" Tony asked immediately. His head was still swimming with a mixture of dizziness and pain, but he was thinking clearly enough to remember what had happened. She was having a nightmare, that much he knew, and he had tried to wake her.

"I'm okay, Tony," a voice called. Tony spun his head around to see the apologetic face of his partner on sitting on the edge of her bed. "Are you?"

"I'm fine, Z," he replied with an attempt at a smile. "I should know better than to mess with you." His smile widened but she called out his attempt to make her feel better. She did not return the smile.

"I need coffee," Gibbs muttered to nobody in particular as he rose from his knees and walked out of the room.

"Mr Palmer," Ducky called out. "Why don't you take Anthony to triage and stitch up this cut on his forehead?"

"Will do, Doctor," Palmer replied and, together with Ducky, he hoisted Tony to his feet. Tony was still a little shaky, but he soon found his sea legs and Palmer walked him out of the room to a bed on the right of the chief doctor's desk while Ducky remained in the room with Ziva. Jenny, Ben and Tariq had followed Gibbs out of the room and were now standing in the corner by the infirmary's entry and exit, clandestinely discussing something out of earshot of everyone else.

A corpsman brought Palmer a suture kit and offered his help, which Palmer respectively declined. The corpsman already looked overworked and Palmer didn't wish to add to his workload. He expressed gratitude and relief at this and called out to his superior that he was going to have dinner, leaving Palmer and Tony alone.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Palmer asked, in an effort to distract Tony from the sting as he cleaned the gash on his forehead.

"Something that they are not planning to tell us," Tony responded, looking in their direction. "You, me, Gibbs, McGee—we'll return to the US and they'll go and take on Ziva's mission to do whatever it was she was doing. Find this terrorist training camp or whatever."

"You don't think that we'll be involved in it?"

"Nope," Tony answered as Palmer looked through the suture kit. "You do know how to do this, don't you?"

"Of course," Palmer returned confidently, 'aha'ing when he found what he needed. "Your cut is small enough for me to use Steri Strips. No point stitching you up if I don't have to."

"So give me the Steri Strips," Tony ordered. Then his tone softened. "I had a dream while I was out."

"What sort of dream?" asked Palmer as he dried the area around the cut and prepared the strips.

"Kate was in it."

"You were dreaming about Kate?!" Palmer ejected, dropping the strips on the floor.

"Will you keep it down?" Tony demanded angrily as Palmer bent down to pick them up.

"Sorry," the younger man said as he started to strip the sliced pieces of skin above Tony's eyebrow back together. "So you had a dream about Kate?"

"Well, she was giving me advice."

"On?"

"They're withholding information from us," Tony told him, gesturing his head in the direction of Jenny, Ben and Tariq.

Palmer just sighed when he moved his head. "Will you hold still?"

"Sorry."

"What are they withholding?"

"Kate said she didn't know because I didn't know."

"It's your subconscious speaking to you," Palmer assured him.

"Don't you think that I don't know that?"

"No," Palmer said, a little flabbergasted. "I know you do. What else did she say?"

"That I should trust Ziva."

"And you don't?"

"I know that I have to. She said that we wouldn't be able to work out anything until we trust each other again and that will only happen when the time is right."

"Right..." Palmer said, drawing out the syllables in confusion. "And when will the time be right?"

"I have no idea! Kate wasn't really making much sense. She told me that Ziva was withholding information from me and that I had to be careful with her and then she told me to trust her explicitly."

"I think that she means that even though Ziva's not being entirely truthful with you, she's doing it to keep you safe and you need to trust her to do so. When the time comes, you'll know what she's doing for you." And with that, he finished with the strips. "All done. How do you feel?"

"Like Ziva shoved me on the floor," Tony replied in a drawl. He was far more concerned with what Palmer had just explained to him. "I hope you're right, but I just wish I knew what they were saying to each other," Tony added, again looking in the direction of the three intelligence and counterintelligence specialists in the corner.

"So do I, DiNozzo," came a voice from behind him.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Did any of you guess who the beloved character was going to be? Tony's hallucination/dream?

Anyway, I'm not sure when I'll get the next chapter written and up. I have to juggle work and going to demonstrations in support of the Iranian post-election freedom movement, so maybe Monday. If I finish the chapter tonight, I may get it up tomorrow. Please review.


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty**

Desperate for sleep and overrun by exhaustion, Tony was sitting, alone, in their conference room, reading through intelligence briefs from his agency on the current case. Magnum PI was playing on his laptop in the background and by some kind of a miracle—or not—he found himself completely aware of the episode's storyline without raising his head from translations of Arabic and Berber documents. It was a skill like anything else, he reminded himself with a broad smile.

"Smiling to yourself now, DiNozzo," a voice came from behind.

"Ah, Director David," Tony commented, surprised, and shut the files with a quick swish of paper.

David sat opposite him with a smug smile. Tension had followed him into the room, thickening the air so that Tony was almost suffocating, but he held his ground. He had been shocked to see the arrival of the Mossad Director three hours prior as he sat in the hallway of the infirmary, and hadn't spoken to the formidable character since.

"Not sleeping?" David asked. His tone was both mocking towards the younger man and mildly amused by the predicament.

"Concussion," replied Tony in a simple word. David didn't respond, but glared at the TV show blaring from Tony's computer. The NCIS agent sheepishly reached over to the keyboard and turned off the offending interruption.

"Perhaps you should be more careful. You don't want to injure that arm again."

"Thanks for the advice," Tony muttered. "Got any more of it?"

"I would be very careful with that line of questioning, Agent DiNozzo," David warned. "Do not think that your dense and deficient actions of late will shed any positive light on your position with me or gain you any favours."

"No brownie points, eh? You don't have to worry, Director. I wasn't looking to gain any favours. Not from you, anyway."

David chuckled lightly. "No? From my daughter, perhaps?"

Tony glared in his direction. His palms were sweating but he knew that he would not—could not—break in front of the man. He would do this. He would get through each and every interrogation with her father, and he would do it for her. Bravely, he looked up and behind him, towards the door after hearing a small noise. A noise he wasn't even sure was there. But it was. Grateful for the saving grace of a foolhardy young sailor's interruption, and Director David's stare in quick succession, Tony found himself smirking contently as he edged further back into his seat.

The young sailor had been assigned to escort the Mossad Director everywhere—and his commanding officer had stressed that word emphatically—around the ship. He was beginning to regret volunteering for the endeavour, and dimwittedly deciding to sneak a look into the conference room to better hear the conversation between the NCIS agent and his partner's father. When he finally shrunk back, embarrassed and afraid, Director David turned his attention back to Tony.

"We will be returning ashore at dawn tomorrow," David informed him, although Tony already knew this. A Seahawk chopper to the Marine base in Djibouti and then a decision would be made as to where each party went from there.

Tony nodded slightly, allowing David to continue. "I will be taking my daughter home."

"She's working with us-" Tony began rapidly before the older man cut him off and stood up.

"She works for me! And I am taking my daughter home. She is injured. How possibly can she assist your agency now?"

Tony was ignoring David's finger, the giant, red sausage, pointing in his direction, angry and pulsating. His own temper was rising through the stratosphere and, he too, found himself standing. "She is not going with you," he warned in a low voice, doing everything he could to control the vibrating feelings that were consuming him. "We are returning to NCIS, Naples, to complete this operation and we will require Ziva's knowledge if we're even to know where to start."

"She has been through an ordeal, Agent DiNozzo," David told him in normal tone, but still laced with malice. "I will not allow her to relive it, least of all with you."

"Now you're concerned for her wellbeing?" Tony put forward incredulously with a rise of the eyebrows. "I think that it's your fault she was ever involved in this to begin with. You wanted her back, you got her and then you send her on something that's damn near a suicide mission-"

"DiNozzo," a voice called from behind him. Tony turned to see his boss standing expectantly in the doorway. It was good timing by the former Marine, of course, and he intervened just in time to stop their heated discussion from turning violent. Director David did look murderous.

Gibbs simply gestured his head over his shoulder, indicating for Tony to follow him, which, naturally, the sheep did without question. Shaking his head, David returned to his seat and reached for the files that Tony had not been thinking clearly enough to take with him.

---

"Not the best idea you've had, DiNozzo," Gibbs commented as he descended flights of stairs to the level he wanted. "Engaging in a debate like that with the Director of Mossad."

"He wants Ziva to return with him to Tel Aviv after everything that's happened," Tony told him exasperatedly. He was following his boss down to the dungeons of hell, it would seem, and had no real idea where they were headed.

"Didn't say it wasn't warranted," Gibbs added before coming to a stop at a door. Ignoring Tony's glances of confusion, he pushed it open and walked into the brig. Almost like a curious child, or an eager servant, Tony followed the other NCIS agent inside and towards the last cell, where a man appeared to be sleeping on a cot. He immediately recognised the man as Salim Khalid, and, feeling the resurgence of pent up anger and frustration, wanted to throttle him while he slept. Again, it was Gibbs, or merely his presence, that stopped Tony from getting into a violent confrontation.

"Wake up," Gibbs called out to Salim without even bothering to open the door to his cell and walk in.

Salim stirred slowly, but after Gibbs threw water on him, he rose drowsily from his slumber and sat, slouching, on his bed.

"Tomorrow you will be moved to an unnamed facility is some unknown country and I don't want to begin to list the horrible things that will happen to you there," Gibbs began, his arms resting between the bars. "Unless you can give me anything substantial, I can't and won't petition for you to remain in NCIS custody."

Salim smiled broadly, as though he'd been expecting it and was waiting until Gibbs caved and used the threat. But some part of Salim was still afraid—he knew that it wasn't just a threat. "Jihad is forever."

"And your forever's about to be over."

"This is not about me," Salim told him. "No one man is so important."

"You're obviously expendable," Tony put in. "Bernstein was willing to give you up for the cause."

"You must be Agent DiNozzo?" Salim asked sardonically. "Would you like to hear what your beautiful Israeli partner cried in the dark of night?"

Tony didn't even feel himself hit the bars, but not a moment after he flung himself forward, Gibbs was hauling him out of the room and telling him to stay out. He looked frazzled when he came back moments later.

"Can I ask you a question?" Gibbs prompted, releasing himself of the angry constraints of his feelings as he compartmentalised them and focused on the job.

"I believe that you, Agent Gibbs, have earned that right."

"Someone of your calibre and deep belief system must have a good reason for doing this."

"That is your question? You want to know why I am here?"

Gibbs didn't give any response, but waited for the answer that he knew was coming.

"I believe I answered it earlier. Jihad is forever."

"And the innocent people that your terrorist cell in LA planned to murder? That's part of the life you chose as well. If you wanted to achieve that so much, why not do something in service of your country? How did Bernstein convince you to join him?"

"Israel? America? It does not matter. My family was killed by American bombs dropped from Israeli aircrafts. It. Does. Not. Matter."

"So that's why you're doing this? Revenge?"

Salim chuckled and shook his head. "No, you are trying to manipulate me."

"I am trying to understand you. Tell me, is that how Bernstein was able to recruit you so easily? Because he understood you?"

"You don't know anything, you fool. He treats me with the respect that I deserve. I work hard for him and I will not betray him."

"He treats you to all his winnings too, does he? The terrorist training game probably spins a yard of cash."

"He even invites me to vacation with him at his private resort in Morocco," Salim replied smarmily. "I am one of the most important handlers he has and I won't tell you anything."

Gibbs' expression didn't change. He shrugged and left, walking into an eavesdropping Tony on his way out.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs condemned as he shut the entry to the brig behind him.

"Sorry, boss," Tony replied sheepishly. "Ah, what now?"

"Call Abby," Gibbs ordered. "Have her run Hazaiah Bernstein's travel records against all known aliases of Salim Khalid and Abin Tabal. Find the other handlers. And this resort. He probably met with them there."

"Sure, boss," Tony replied.

"Agent Gibbs," a voice called from a distance. The form of a man approached and, as he got closer, they recognised it to be Tariq.

"What can I do for you, Mr Bustani?" Gibbs requisitioned with feigned politeness.

"I see that you have been talking to my prisoner again. Did he say anything of value?"

"Not to me," Gibbs replied with a straight face, and Tony reminded himself never to play poker with his boss.

"We have ways of making him talk," Tariq commented with a blasé attitude.

"I know that you do."

There was tension building between them in the awkward small talk and Tony wondered if Tariq knew that Gibbs was lying. But, thankfully, an interruption came in the form of Tariq's satellite phone.

"Excuse me," Tariq said, and he left the other two gentlemen standing idly outside the brig as he walked into the nearest empty conference room to answer the phone. Looking at the screen before pressing the receive button, he read the name on the caller ID.

Leon Vance.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Sorry for the delay again, but I was busy over the weekend and Monday. The next chapter is written and will be up tomorrow night. Please review.


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-One**

"May I ask what I have done to warrant another phone call, Director?" Tariq spoke into the phone. His voice was low and tense, and he was also listening intently to hear Tony's jovial tones passing by the room he was in, signalling that the two NCIS agents were far out of earshot. He did not wish to be caught consorting with their director when they very clearly had disobeyed his orders to get here.

"Checking up on what information Gibbs has found," came Vance's stern reply. "Did he get anything of value from Khalid?"

Tariq stopped himself from gulping. In his mind, two choices flashed—denial or betrayal. There was the silver lining, however. Tariq had not been told what information Gibbs had discovered from his interrogation with Salim and, therefore, he had nothing to tell the NCIS director. "Nothing as of yet, sir, but I sense that Agent Gibbs has not been entirely truthful with me."

"Ah, I expected nothing less from Gibbs," Vance responded, mildly cheerful.

"May I put forward a suggestion, Director? Agent Gibbs has obtained information we require and has skills that will be beneficial to us. Why not read him in?"

"Not happening, Bustani," Vance told him quickly. "If it were up to me, then I'd say yes, but it's not. You know that."

"I understand, sir. Perhaps he will reveal the information to Agent Shepard then."

"Or somebody back here," Vance mumbled, voicing his thoughts unintentionally.

"Miss Sciuto?" suggested Tariq with a hopeful expression, even though the director, who was thousands of miles away, could not see it. "If he learnt anything, then he would need to have it verified, sir."

Vance didn't respond right away, and Tariq was alluded into believing that his once hopeful aspirations of pleasing his superiors had been dashed. However, those hopes soon arose again when the NCIS director finally answered him. "Good work, Tariq," Vance commended. "Perhaps your desire for a promotion to another region will be heard by those at Langley this time." And with that, he hung up the phone.

Tariq shook his head, mentally admonishing himself. He could almost compare his goals to Hadar's now, and that was something he was concerned about. He never wanted a promotion or a chance to be reassigned to another region, even for a short period of time, to come at the hands of the friendships he'd nurtured over the years, and especially not at the safety of his own friends. He knew, deep down, that even though it was a requirement to report everything to those higher up in the chain of command, it was an action that often barricaded their progress in any operation and denied them the opportunity to do their jobs and do them well. And when they failed at their jobs, lives were lost. Their own lives, as well as innocent ones.

---

Two Seahawk choppers were organised to bring the party ashore to the base in Djibouti the following morning. Tony, Ziva, Ben, Jenny and Director David were bound up in one, leaving Gibbs with Tariq, McGee, Palmer, Ducky and their captive, Salim Khalid, in the other. The flight was not as long as Tony had first assumed it would be and they were welcomed openly upon their arrival in Djibouti. A Marine Staff Sergeant directed them to demountable on the base that they could use during their short stay.

"Where to now?" Ben asked Jenny as soon as the Marine had left them.

"That's a good question," Jenny replied, taking a seat at the head of the table. Each person in the party followed suit, except for Director David, who'd remained outside to make a phone call and hadn't yet come in.

"I thought we were going to the NCIS office in Naples," Tony put forward. "Your office."

"Well, the Marines want us outta here as soon as we know what we're doing," Jenny told them. "And we need time for reconnaissance, analysis of the information we've got and to decide where our next point of attack is. We can't do that here."

"And Director David?" Tony asked anxiously.

"Can go home," Jenny replied. "I am sure that's what he's organising at the moment. Ziva, however," and she turned to face her old partner, "will be staying with us. We will need to gather and share vital information and there are medical facilities for you in Naples."

"My father will not allow that," Ziva said, rather fragilely. If she were pressed, the bumpy flight had not been good for her recovery and she felt slightly nauseous. But she would never admit it.

"I will speak to him now," Jenny responded. "Gibbs, Tariq, speak to Marines and see when you can organise a flight for us to Italy." They nodded in reply and she left the room, running into Director David on her way out. "Director, may I have a word?"

"Of course, Agent Shepard," David replied politely. "You are asking after my daughter."

"The US and Israel have been involved, in conjunction, on this operation since the beginning," Jenny told him. "Mossad and NCIS have worked especially well on this together. Director Vance and yourself have been able to formulate a good rapport between our agencies and I wish for that to continue, especially on this case. Officer Moshe is already involved in it and we have worked exceptionally well. We would never have been able to find Ziva without him, but now I am asking you to let us finish what we started—what Officer Rivkin started and what Ziva continued."

"And Hazaiah Bernstein?"

"You know that the American interests in this stem to the camp and the sleeper cells responsible for it. And I know that Israeli, or maybe just Mossad, interests focus on the man running it. I believe that this jurisdictional issue can be resolved simply, sir."

David looked at her sternly for a moment, and then softened his gaze. "Agreed."

"Thank you, sir. For your understanding."

"Now, now, Agent Shepard," David said with good humour. "I remember what it was like to be active in the field. I also remember how difficult it was to complete your assignment with your commanding officer breathing down your neck. I wish you the best of luck with this. Now if you will excuse me," he said politely as he pushed passed her, "this young Marine will be escorting me to my jet."

Jenny nodded as the Marine stood at attention and then led the formidable older man back towards the airstrip. The seasoned NCIS agent found herself smiling and mentally praising herself as she walked back into the room.

"Flight leaves in forty," Gibbs told Jenny as soon as she entered. "Got us a C-130 direct to San Vito dei Normanni Air Base and then we've got transport to JFC Naples from there."

Tony stifled a laugh at Gibbs' complete lack of an attempt to add in an Italian accent to the air base's Italian name.

Thirty-five minutes later, they were being bundled up into the C-130 and both Tony and McGee found themselves desperately hoping that there wouldn't turbulence. But there was. Thankfully, it was a relatively short flight and, as they disembarked onto the Italian airstrip, they saw three black town cars with tinted windows waiting for them. Tariq and Ben dragged Salim off first, who was bound and gagged with a black hood over his head, and threw him into the back seat of the first car so fast that nobody could have possibly seen them. They hopped in after and closed the door. Gibbs walked off next and took the front seat of the first car with Tariq, Salim and Ben. Jenny sensed that it was to avoid any further breaches of human rights or international law.

Tony helped Ziva off next and took the second car, along with Jenny. That left McGee, Palmer and Ducky in the final car. Within in five minutes of landing, they were already speeding down the Autostrada towards Campania region of Italy and the coastline on the country's west side which housed the large town of Naples.

For Tony, it was as if his birthday had come early. He was injured and Ziva was injured, which meant that neither of them would be expected to take an active role in the operation. For once, he was glad for desk work, because desk work in this beautiful coastal city in Southern Italy meant time for some relaxation and sightseeing with the only person he'd ever actually pictured himself going on holidays with. He was like a child waiting up for Santa on Christmas Eve.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Coming up next chapter. You guys finally get read into this mission. You get to know what's going on here?! All these names and no idea how they fit together--perhaps the next chapter will provide some clarification. It should be up tomorrow at roughly the same time. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review.


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

It was a beautiful day in Naples, warm and sunny. They arrived at the NATO Joint Force Command base a little after 1300h, local time. Tariq, Gibbs and Ben immediately escorted Salim to an isolated cell in the furthest building while Jenny led Tony, Ziva, McGee, Palmer and Ducky to their quarters on the base. They had individual rooms at Jenny's behest, which were situated on the same floor, and shared a bathroom, common room and kitchen.

An Italian doctor was waiting for Ziva and set her up in her room. Both she and Tony were excused from work for the rest of the day, while McGee, Ducky and Palmer were invited to go sightseeing around the town with a group of young British sailors. Jenny suggested that they go, citing that they would spend the rest of the day in their quarters otherwise. They took the offer.

Ben, Gibbs and Tariq met up with Jenny again about a half an hour later in a secured conference room that was used by NATO intelligence services. Jenny had made sure that the room was shielded from outside ears before she turned her laptop on and placed it in the centre of the table. The men, shrugging to each other, sat down, still unaware of what the briefing would be about. The two that had been read in already knew everything there was to know about the operation. Tariq had assumed they'd be planning it, but Gibbs was still present.

"Although there are some in my chain of command that do not wish me to read you in, Agent Gibbs, I think that it is necessary at this point," Jenny admitted, taking her seat last.

"But Director Vance-" Tariq began before Jenny cut him off.

"Is not running this operation," Jenny finished for him. "I am. You can't deny that we will need Agent Gibbs."

Tariq shrugged and sank back into his chair. Gibbs had yet to say anything.

Jenny turned back to Gibbs. "There have been three known terrorist syndicates to come out of this camp. Handlers are kept and reused across a number of cells. I tracked one cell with Interpol's Anti-Terrorism Task Force to Vienna. They were planning an attack in France, but they never got close enough before we picked up their scent. That was the first time we picked up the trail of this camp, but its safe house in Chad was abandoned by the time we got a location. They move quickly and effectively. The cell that Mossad picked up on was in Yemen at the time. They had Officer Rivkin track it to the US."

"You knew that Rivkin was working an op in LA and didn't think to inform us?" Gibbs spat out angrily.

"Relax, Jethro, I only found out after the fact," Jenny said smoothly. "Tariq and I worked together on the Vienna cell, Rivkin and Mossad had the Yemeni cell and an MI5 team took out another cell in London two days after Ziva went missing. I passed them the information from Abin Tabal's laptop that allowed them to make the arrests, and just in time. They didn't get any live suspects. The cell blew themselves apart in a suburb of Liverpool before MI5 and Scotland Yard got the chance.

"A day after that, I met at Interpol headquarters in Geneva for an intelligence summit with an MI6 officer, Mossad Officer Amit Hadar and Tariq. Mossad learnt the identity of the man running the camp. Hazaiah Bernstein. He's wanted for crimes against the State of Israel."

"Hence Mossad's interest," Tariq put in.

"He assassinated Ari Segev," Gibbs said.

"Of course you knew that," Jenny added. "What do you know about Segev?"

"Not much."

"He was the former Director of Mossad and Eli David's mentor," Ben answered for Jenny. "Bernstein was a Mossad informant in Baghdad before it was liberated. He worked with Ziva there. But after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, he fell off the radar. Mossad picked him up in Tehran, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Lahore, Peshawar, everywhere in Central Asia. But he never stayed in a spot for more than a few days.

"Eventually, he completely disappeared. Until three years ago, when he turned up in Tel Aviv. Segev believed his story, that he was visiting his family, and ordered Mossad to leave him alone. A day later, Segev's town car was hit by a surface missile, destroying most of the street and killing twenty-three people, including Director Segev. The Deputy Director, Eli David, was sworn in after that."

"And you knew it was Bernstein?" Gibbs questioned.

Ben just nodded and didn't offer a 'how.'

"And now Bernstein is running a terrorist training camp?"

"He converted to Islam in Iraq and took the name Fahim 'Uthman al-Khatani," Tariq stated. "We do not know what sparked this change in his beliefs, but since his reappearance in Tel Aviv, he has been responsible for attacks across North Africa in Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria, just to name a few places."

"Mossad wants Bernstein," Jenny told him. "We want the camp and the sleeper cells."

Gibbs nodded. "So where do we start?"

"With Salim Khalid," Jenny answered. "You get anything from your interrogation of him?"

Gibbs instinctively looked over at Tariq, and then smiled. "Resort in Morocco. Abby's running matches with the profiles of any of his known handlers."

"He met his handlers there?" Jenny asked. "Khalid told you this?"

"In a roundabout way, Jen," Gibbs answered. "Abby should get back to me soon."

And almost on cue, his phone rang. Smiling at himself and his gut feeling, he placed the phone on the table and answered it on speaker phone. "Yeah, Abs. What do ya got?"

"A phone number," Abby replied.

"Does this number lead somewhere?"

"No. It hasn't been in use for two weeks," Abby answered earnestly.

"_Did_ it lead you somewhere, Abby?"

"Oh, yeah, Gibbs. Otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it."

"Where, Abby?!"

"Well, I couldn't track the profile of Abin Tabal or Salim Khalid through Moroccan customs, but I did track a phone number from Tabal's laptop. It made several phone calls to a landline at a Moroccan resort by the name of Maghrib Resort in Marrakech, about one hundred and eighty miles from the capital, Rabat."

"Phone call to who?" Gibbs demanded.

"No name. It belongs to the hotel. But..."

"But?"

"I have the phone's location in the hotel and the local time that the calls were made," Abby answered. "If you can get McGee access to the CCTV, you'll find the man you're looking for."

"Thanks, Abs," Gibbs replied before hanging up.

"We're going to Morocco," Jenny announced. "Tariq, passports, and get Jethro and I a suite at the resort."

"Undercover with Ben and I doing surveillance?" Tariq asked.

"I like it," Ben added with a mischievous smile.

"And McGee," Jenny told them. "We will need him to get access to the CCTV."

"And the others?" Gibbs asked.

"Tony and Ziva are injured," Jenny told him. "We will not need them. I've volunteered Ducky's and Jimmy's services to the ME on base. He's been swamped with the identification of fifteen fishermen that may have been killed by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. They were picked up by a French Naval ship and delivered here for NATO to deal with. I do suggest, however, that you invite Miss Scuito to join us here in Naples. We may need her expertise close at hand."

"She'll be thrilled," Gibbs commented monotonously.

---

It was quite late in the afternoon when Tony finally woke up. He still felt tired but it was his grumbling stomach that was calling the shots. That emptiness was the reason he woke up in the first place. However, his first stop was not the kitchen, but his partner's room. And it was as empty as the space between his diaphragm and intestines.

"Ziva?" he called out down the empty hallway on their floor.

"In here," came the reply.

He followed the voice to find her sitting comfortably on the lounge with her legs tucked underneath her, reading a book in Hebrew.

"Hey," he said as he walked in front of her, needlessly announcing his presence. She already knew that he was there.

She didn't look up at him, but moved over to allow him to sit tightly next to her. As he sat down, she placed her bookmark on the page she was reading and put the book down on the coffee table. She then swung her hips so that they were facing each other.

Cautiously, her hands soft and smooth, she reached up to him and traced two fingers along the wound she had caused the previous evening. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Tony met his hands with hers and pulled them down to her lap, still grasping them tightly. "I'm fine, Ziva," he said softly, and then cracked a smile. "You know what Gibbs says about apologies."

Ziva smiled back, laughing at him a little. "I know, but I still feel bad. You were trying to help me and I hurt you."

"Believe me, I am fine," Tony maintained strongly. His fingers were unintentionally tracing soothing circles in her palms, but she didn't seem to mind. She had noticed, but rather enjoyed the soft feeling on her skin. "Are you okay? Do you want to tell me about the nightmare?"

She looked down, so he pressed a little harder, but not too hard.

"I won't even say anything if you don't want me to," Tony continued. "I'll be a soundless sponge. Scout's honour."

Slowly and warily, she brought her eyes back up to meet his. The green medallions were so inviting, so soft and comforting. Her fragile state almost allowed her to fall apart in his arms, but she held on to whatever strength she had left and held her ground. A part of her wondered if letting go and expressing everything was the right way to go; then Tony could help her pick up the pieces and help her rebuild her life. He was the only person in the world that she trusted with that assignment, and, even when Michael was alive, she never felt that she could show any sort of weakness or vulnerability around him. Tony was the only person that could be there for her strongest moments and her weakest.

"It's okay, Z," Tony said finally in the same soft tone. "You don't have to tell me. I know that it must be hard."

"I remember, Tony," she admitted as soon as he said that.

He looked at her sorrowfully, quickly getting over surprise. He had not expected her to say anything. "I remember what that... that bastard did to me. How he hurt me. And I wish I didn't. I could see him doing it to me again. I thought I was back there..." She let her voice trail off and she looked down, her eyes glazed over with tears.

Tony brought his hands out of her lap and cupped her face. "He will never, ever, get that close to you again, Ziva. Nobody will. I will protect you. I will never let anything like that happen to you again. I've got your six." He leant in and gently pressed his lips to her forehead and then pulled away.

Ziva gazed up at him intently. Closing her eyes, she leant closer to him and rested her head on his chest. Taking it as a sign that he could get closer to her, Tony placed his arms around her body softly and pulled her into an embrace, cuddling her closely to his chest.

Ziva kept her eyes closed as she took in his scent, his warm embrace and his strong, protective arms. She had not felt safe in a long time, and she finally did. At peace and loved in his arms—something that she never had with Rivkin. They had passion and fire, that much she was sure of, but she never had love. Not like she did with Tony. Pressing her body closer to his, she held on to him tight, telling herself that for just ten minutes, she would allow herself to be the child that she never was—the child that was comforted by a loved one when she was scared. But they stayed that way for a lot longer than ten minutes. They stayed there for hours.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Okay, I really wanna know what you think of this chapter. You're read in now... well, pretty much. You know just about everything there is to know about this operation specifically, although I know there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the participates. Was it plausible enough for the show, then? I really want to know. And did you enjoy the Tiva at the end? Please review and let me know.

Coming up next- Jibbs (hehehe :) undercover at a luxurious resort... A friend of theirs makes a long awaited reappearance (he hasn't been here in a while) and Tiva are discovered by someone.


	23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

Tony's legs were numb and his arms were getting sore. Moving slightly, he realised that Ziva had fallen asleep on him and was snoring softly, not like she had been that night they shared a bed when they were undercover. He stretched out his legs and waited for feeling to come back before rising to his feet, pulling Ziva's dead weight with him and carrying her, limping slightly on his anesthetized leg, back to her room.

Softly, he laid her down in between the sheets and started to move away. But he could not. She was gripping his t-shirt tightly, like a child that couldn't bear to let go of its safe haven. He was going to wake her, but instinctively was a little afraid that the crazy ninja chick, who probably still kept a gun underneath her pillow, would yank it out and hold it his temple again. At the same time, if he stayed with her, what's to say she wouldn't do the same when she woke? Smiling to himself, he knew there was only one way to go. He slid her body over to the left side of the bed and climbed in next to her, pulling her back on to his chest again so they could sleep once more. He was surprised to find that a dreamless, peaceful sleep came to him very easily, for the first time in more than two weeks.

---

Ziva's eyes opened slowly when she heard a gasp. She was clutching cotton, that much she knew, and there was a familiar warmth squirming slightly beneath her. Slowly, she rolled over and looked up at the noise that had interrupted her beauty sleep. She smiled when she recognised the intruder and slipped out of Tony's grip, pulling on her dressing gown as she did so.

"When did you get here?" Ziva asked.

"Oh my god, that was the sweetest thing I ever saw-"

"Abby," Ziva commanded in a low, strong voice. "You will wake him." And with that, she led her friend out of the room and into the common room, which was empty, closing the door behind her.

"Are you sleeping with Tony?" Abby asked immediately. She hadn't even started with asking Ziva how she was.

"No. We just fell asleep together," Ziva responded lightly. She took a left and veered into the kitchen to turn on the kettle and make herself a strong cup of tea. Abby followed her.

"In your bed?"

"No. We were on the couch and I fell asleep. I guess that Tony must have carried me back to my bed."

"And he stayed."

"When did you get here?" Ziva repeated.

"Never mind that now," Abby jumped in. "How are you feeling? Was it the most terrible thing ever?"

"I assure you, Abby, I am fine," Ziva told her, without answering the second question. She was not nearly ready enough to make any comment on it.

Abby, sensing this, did not ask that again. "Your injuries?"

"I'm healing well," Ziva maintained. "The doctor does not think I will need any more surgery, although he is waiting for the swelling to clear, and the head injury has healed remarkably. I am okay."

"Well, allow me to be honest," Abby asked politely. "It really doesn't look it."

"It is worse than it looks, Abby," Ziva told her.

"Exactly!" Abby shot out before her face dropped. "Although I think you meant that it is better than it looks."

Ziva contemplated the sentence again, all the while looking oddly at Abby, and then responded. "Yes. So are you going to answer my question?"

"What question?" Abby asked confusedly as the kettle's whistling died down and Ziva poured herself a cup of tea.

"When did you get here? And do you want some?"

"Tea?" Abby queried rhetorically. "No, thank you."

"Okay, and when did you get here? And why?"

"This morning," Abby replied finally. "Gibbs called me last night and told me that I had a plane ticket to Rome Fiumicino at Dulles leaving in an hour. I barely had enough time to get clothes from my apartment."

"Speaking of Gibbs, have you seen him?" Ziva inquired as she sipped her tea, the warm liquid soothing her sore throat. "Or anyone else for that matter?"

"Hmm... I saw Ducky and Palmer walking across the grounds to some other building, and Gibbs, McGee, that Agent Shepard and two other guys flew out of Rome last night for Morocco. Don't ask me anymore because I don't know."

"Morocco?" came a sleepy voice from behind them. "Who's going to Morocco?"

"Gibbs already left, Tony," Abby answered bouncily.

"Dammit," Tony muttered, feigning bitterness. "He knew that I wanted to go. Ever since that fake extradition slash kidnap of that arms dealer, Goliath. I wonder what became of him."

"Do you really want to know?" Ziva asked intuitively and with a broad smile on her face.

"I suppose not," Tony responded quickly. "What are we supposed to do all day on this naval base without our courageous, one-legged, scurvy ridden captain? Oh captain, my captain..."

Ziva scowled at the movie reference that barely even fit with the current topic. She observed that Tony often lost track when he was really tired, so her suggestion was not unwarranted. "Sleep."

"I don't know what you two wanna do, but I gotta put together a link-up with McGee in half an hour," Abby said, and then glanced at her watch. "Make that ten minutes. See ya." And she walked off before they could ask why.

"So..." Tony began awkwardly. "We're alone. We're in Italy. We have nothing to do. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Unfortunately."

"We're on vacation, Ziva!"

"We got left behind because we're too tired and injured to join our friends in combat and will probably be a liability to them," Ziva replied pointedly.

She was frowning at him, but the audacity of Tony's next comment made her laugh. "Does that make us any less on vacation?"

"You win," she muttered with a wide smile. She had always intended to let him win anyway. Perhaps they really were getting back to being Tony and Ziva and she could forget, just for one day, how they strayed so far from being that anyway.

---

The temperature in the Moroccan city of Marrakech was perfect for a summer's day vacation in a secluded, luxurious location. Tariq, Ben and McGee checked into hotel rooms in the lower end of the resort so as not to attract too much attention. They had adjoining rooms and were currently sitting around a small desk in the larger of the two. McGee had set up a makeshift cyber lab in the room and was putting in the finishing touches before attempting to access the resort's closed circuit surveillance network. Tariq had skilfully entered the hotel's security centre and stolen a printout of its camera locations as well as other vital information which he needed to share with McGee.

"There are no wireless linkup points if that is what you are looking for," Tariq told the young NCIS agent.

McGee looked up from his computer screen mortified. "How do you expect me to access the CCTV then?"

"I thought you had the computer system's stored data," Ben put in.

"I do but that doesn't help us watch Gibbs and Agent Shepard with a live feed," McGee explained exasperatedly. "We can only see them once the data has been recorded and entered into the system."

"So how do you get access to the live feed?" Ben asked, his tone mildly mocking McGee's overreaction.

McGee sighed and slapped his face, dragging his hand down exaggeratedly. "I need to get access to their main frame and then set up my own wireless, undetectable linkup, which only I will know how to use."

"Okay," Ben decided. "We'll do that then."

"Do you have any idea how difficult that is?" McGee ejected, more harshly than he originally intended. In all honesty though, he was exhausted. He'd been working around the clock since Tony disappeared, then was seasick for an entire day on a carrier, and had now spent the entire evening planning something that wasn't going to work anyway.

"I am sure that it simply requires you gain technical access to the computer's main frame station, find the wiring you need to bug, plant the wireless device and then access it from here," Tariq concluded, unamused.

Ben, on the other hand, found it quite entertaining. "You know what this means, Agent McGee? You're going undercover as a tech."

* * *

**Author's Note: **I am so sick.... My mother told me to shut up because I sound like I'm on helium and for someone who likes the sound of their own mongulated voice, it was a hard thing to do. So I finished this chapter. Coming up next... McGee undercover with a toolbelt.... hehehe, and JIBBS! Yay! Please review.


	24. Chapter 24

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

Tramping up the stairs in an oversized uniform and loose tool belt that threatened to trip him over at the knees if he didn't pull it up, McGee nervously approached the main security room at the far end of the resort's boundaries. He swiped the entry card that Ben had stolen from the same tech he drugged, stripped of his uniform and locked in the bathroom of one of their rooms. McGee had been against it, but Tariq and Ben both agreed that it was necessary and overruled him, quoting the age-old philosophy of the world's second oldest profession—no one person is more important than a mission's completion.

The resort's security system was extensive. McGee had downloaded the blueprints to it and hidden a compressed version in the underside of his tie. As he made his way through the maze of wires and beepers, the nervousness that had been gripping his mind and covering his body with sweat slowly ebbed away. He was quite at peace when he finally found the section of wiring that he needed to alter. He pulled the wireless transmitter from his loose belt and fiddled it into the electric circuit. Pulling out a radio from the other side of the belt, he made contact with his colleagues back at the hotel room.

"How are we?" he spoke into the receiver.

A reply came moments later. "And we're up and running," Ben told him. "I'll let Gibbs and Jenny know. Get back here."

"I'm on my way," McGee replied and replaced the radio in its holster. Before he left, he carefully hid the small rectangular transmitter within a web of wires and shut the door. Concern was starting to creep up on him again, but he made it back to the hotel room without any dramas. He changed back into a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved checked shirt, then helped Tariq redress the unconscious tech, squirming uncomfortably the entire time.

"Relax, McGee," Tariq told him complacently. "We will leave him in the security room dressed, slurring, disoriented, but otherwise fine, and nobody will be the wiser."

McGee left it to Ben and Tariq to sneak the man back to where they found him while he video-called Abby.

"I got access to the live surveillance feed," McGee told her when her face appeared on his computer screen.

"Ooh, Timmy's gone badass," Abby commented immaturely.

"Uploading the stream to you now," he alerted her, ignoring the remark. And he rerouted most of the information from his computer to hers.

"I matched the time of the phone calls placed to that number from Tabal's laptop," Abby told him. "And I've found our guy. I'm running him through Interpol now, but no matches so far. I'll send you a copy of the image so you can pass it on to Gibbs."

McGee looked at the photo of the tall, dark-skinned male stranger. He left it next to his computer and bid Abby goodbye before going to the bathroom for the first time in over ten hours. When he came back, the photograph was gone.

---

With suspicion, Jenny noticed Gibbs glancing at a piece of paper their driver had handed them before they departed from the drop zone. They were being driven to the resort where they would check into a luxurious suite with a Moroccan night theme that was practically right out of Aladdin. She finally gave into curiosity and looked right over his shoulder.

"Is he the one that made the phone calls to Tabal?" Jenny asked.

"Yeah. Do you know him?"

"Never seen him before," Jenny answered earnestly, then addressed the driver. "How did you get the photo? I didn't know that you already spoke to McGee."

The driver looked back at her through his rear vision mirror and smiled. "It was left for me by Agent McGee."

"Left for you?" Gibbs asked with his eyebrow raised. "McGee doesn't go beyond his orders."

"In a manner of speaking then, Agent Gibbs," the driver replied with a slick smile, one that Jenny returned, before placing his gaze back on the road ahead.

About twenty minutes later, they arrived at the majestic gates of the resort that Jenny and Gibbs would call an eerie paradise for the next few days. The driver was buzzed in and he stopped right in front of the entrance, where four bellman in strict traditional Moroccan dress were waiting for them. Two of the men opened the back seat doors for Jenny and Gibbs while the other two removed their luggage from the trunk. Gibbs had no idea what had been packed for him, but the moment he saw the expensive Louis Vuitton luggage case, he knew that it wasn't from Sears. Oh, the fun that would be had in expensive, rigid and eye-snatching designer clothes for the next few days. He was cursing his old partner on the inside, but when Jenny looked over at him, he almost wondered if she could see right through his outer facade at what he really thought about the mission.

"Welcome to the Saghrib Resort, Marrakech," another man, who Gibbs guessed to be the manager, greeted. "I trust that you will find your stay enjoyable, Mr and Mrs Gipps. This young gentleman will show you the way to your premier suite." Gibbs nodded and placed a hundred dollar American bill in the manager's front pocket. Two bellmen eagerly followed the pair as they trekked behind the first man, who led them to their hotel rooms. Gibbs then tipped them each a fifty and sent them on their way.

"Not bad," Jenny commented as she looked around the spacious villa that led out onto a private pool and outdoor living area. The bedroom with the king size bed was to her left and was decorated with an exotic mix of red and burgundy colours. The floor was made of a deep red oak, and silk curtains of a rich purples and reds draped over the windows, casting a shimmering light through the suite. Gibbs was almost swept away by the enormity of the room's wealth and didn't dare to ask Jenny how much the CIA paid for it.

"You stayed in rooms like this often, Jen?"

"A few times," she answered as she took a seat in a low, purple, bean-bag like settee.

"It get old?" he asked, taking a seat on much higher ground—an intricately designed wooden chair by a small dining table that was merely for show. They knew that they would eat in one of the resort's many differently themed restaurants.

"No," she replied, solemnly looking away from him. "It doesn't."

"I'm sensing a but, Jenny."

"I am," she answered simply, looking back at him.

"Feeling old? I must say, you don't look it. I can see that you've changed since we parted in Paris, but you don't look like you've aged too much. Not physically anyway."

"Bit deep for you, isn't it, Jethro?" Jenny asked pointedly in an obvious attempt to shift the focus.

"Not if it's true. Then it merely becomes an observation."

"If you wanted to ask about my time undercover all over the world, you only had to ask."

"You obviously aren't willing to share that information, Jen."

"Wait until the Freedom of Information Act kicks in."

"And what happens now? You can't keep doing this forever."

"I don't plan to."

"Time to come back, maybe?"

Jenny sighed and turned away from him again. He stood up, walked over to her and then shifted her over to the side of the settee and sat down next to her. It was definitely something that was not made for two people and she was half sitting in his lap. One part of her really didn't mind and the other, the analytical and logical side that always won, reminded her that they were on a mission as a married couple together so she should get used to being so close to him.

"I've missed you, Jenny," Gibbs told her slowly and in a low, serious voice.

She closed her eyes and leaned into him.

"You can't keep running and you can't survive out here forever. Come home."

"I want to," she admitted without opening her eyes. "I've wanted to for a long time, Jethro. Believe me, I have."

"What's stopping you?"

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Circumstances. Something always comes up out here that I need to take care of. That I'm relied on to take care of. All I have is this job and I will give everything for it."

"That's not all you have, Jenny," Gibbs told her forcefully. "But you have never given yourself the time to figure out the rest. You could have so much more if you turned yourself off work and onto something else."

"Like you? What do you have?"

He pulled away from her instinctively and stood up. It wasn't long before he started pacing; she hadn't moved from her seat near the floor.

"You don't know either, do you?" Jenny asked, pressing her point again. "This job is all we have. We proved once that we couldn't have anything more than that in our lives."

"No, you proved that," Gibbs spat out angrily as he stopped pacing and glared at her.

"I did that? All by myself? You were more concerned with the job as well, Jethro, but I had the guts to do something about it."

"You had the guts to do something about it?! You put it into a letter, Jen!"

She took a step towards him with an enraged look in her eyes. "We are on assignment and could be overheard by anyone. Keep your voice down."

He stepped away from her and walked to the fridge, pulling out a beer. "Right. We shouldn't talk about this anymore."

Skilfully, she managed to mask the hurt in her eyes. "You're right. We shouldn't."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I'm not sure when I'll update next because I've got a big week ahead of week and I really like crap. I'm going to kill the brother that gave me the cold. Anyway, Jibbs will be coming--I'm working up to it. Same for Tiva. We'll check back in with them in Naples next up. Please review.


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